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CALIF. 


CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY        -^ 

NEW  YORK    •    BOSTON   ■    CHICAGO 
SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &   CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 

TORONTO 


CRAFTSMANSHIP 
IN   TEACHING 


BY 
WILLIAM    CHANDLER   BAGLEY 

AUTHOR    OF    "THE   EDUCATIVE    PROCESS,"    "CLASSROOM 
MANAGEMENT,"   "EDUCATIONAL  VALUES,"   ETC. 

,-«    r-    "--    >*V   f  1 


Neto  g0rfe 

THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

191 1 

Aii  rights  rts*rved 


Copyright,  1911, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  April,  191X. 


J.  8.  CuRhlng  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


Edncatlon 
Library 


TO  MY  PARENTS 


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PREFACE 

The  following  papers  are  published  chiefly  because  they 
treat  in  a  concrete  and  personal  manner  some  of  the  prin- 
ciples which  the  writer  has  developed  in  two  previously 
published  books,  The  Educative  Process  and  Classroom 
Management,  and  in  a  forthcoming  volume,  Educational 
Values.  It  is  hoped  that  the  more  informal  discussions 
presented  in  the  following  pages  will,  in  some  slight 
measure,  supplement  the  theoretical  and  systematic 
treatment  which  necessarily  characterizes  the  other 
books.  In  this  coimection,  it  should  be  stated  that  the 
materials  of  the  first  paper  here  presented  were  drawn 
upon  in  writing  Chapter  XVIII  of  Classroom  Manage- 
ment, and  that  the  second  paper  simply  states  in  a  dif- 
ferent form  the  conclusions  reached  in  Chapter  I  of 
The  Educative  Process. 

The  writer  is  indebted  to  his  colleague,  Professor  L.  F. 
Anderson,  for  many  criticisms  and  suggestions  and  to 
Miss  Bemice  Harrison  for  invaluable  aid  in  editing 
the  papers  for  publication.  But  his  heaviest  debt,  here 
as  elsewhere,  is  to  his  wife,  to  whose  encouraging  sym- 
pathy and  inspiration  whatever  may  be  valuable  in  this 
or  in  his  other  books  must  be  largely  attributed. 

Urbana,  Ilunois, 
March  i,  iqii. 

vii 


CONTENTS 

CHATTBK  PACK 

I.    Craftsmanship  in  Teaching i 

II.    Optimism  in  Teaching 23 

III.  How  MAY  WTE   Promote  the  Effictency  of  the 

Teaching  Force  ? 43 

IV.  The  Test  of  Efficiency  in  Supervision       .        .  63 
V.    The  Supervisor  and  the  Teacher       ...  77 

VI.    Education  and  Utility 96 

VII.    The  Scientific  Spirit  in  Education    .        .        .123 

VIII.    The  Possibility  of  Training  Children  to  Study  144 

IX.    A  Plea  for  the  Definite  in  Education     .        .164 

X.    Science  as  Related  to  the  Teaching  of  Liter- 
ature    191 

XI.    The  New  Attitude  toward  Drill       .        .        .  204 

XII.    The  Ideal  Teacher 229 


CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

I 

Craftsmanship  in  Teaching* 


"  In  the  laboratory  of  life,  each  newcomer  repeats  the  old  experi- 
ments, and  laughs  and  weeps  for  himself.  We  will  be  explorers, 
though  Jill  the  highways  have  their  guideposts  and  every  bypath 
is  mapped.  Helen  of  Troy  will  not  deter  us,  nor  the  wounds  of 
Caesar  frighten,  nor  the  voice  of  the  king  crying  'Vanity! '  from 
his  throne  dismay.  What  wonder  that  the  stars  that  once  sang  for 
joy  are  dumb  and  the  constellations  go  down  in  silence."  —  Arthur 
Sherburne  Hardy:  The  Wind  of  Destiny. 

We  tend,  I  think,  to  look  upon  the  acjvice  that  we  give 
to  young  people  as  something  that  shall  disillusionize 
them.  The  cynic  of  forty  sneers  at  what  he  terms  the 
platitudes  of  commencement  addresses.  He  knows  life. 
He  has  been  behind  the  curtains.  He  has  looked  upon 
the  other  side  of  the  scenery,  —  the  side  that  is  just  frame- 
work and  bare  canvas.  He  has  seen  the  ugly  machinery 
that  shifts  the  stage  setting  —  the  stage  setting  which 
appears  so  impressive  when  viewed  from  the  front.  He 
has  seen  the  rouge  on  the  cheeks  that  seem  to  blush  with 

*  An  address  to  the  graduating  class  of  the  Oswego,  New  York,  State 
Normal  School,  February,  1907. 


2  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

the  bloom  of  youth  and  beauty  and  innocence,  and  has 
caught  the  cold  glint  in  the  eyes  that,  from  the  distance, 
seem  to  languish  with  tenderness  and  love.  Why,  he  asks, 
should  we  create  an  illusion  that  must  thus  be  rudely 
dispelled  ?  Why  revamp  and  refurbish  the  old  platitudes 
and  dole  them  out  each  succeeding  year  ?  Why  not  tell 
these  young  people  the  truth  and  let  them  be  prepared  for 
the  fate  that  must  come  sooner  or  later  ? 

But  the  cynic  forgets  that  there  are  some  people  who 
never  lose  their  illusions,  —  some  men  and  women  who 
are  always  yoimg,  —  and,  whatever  may  be  the  type  of 
men  and  women  that  other  callings  and  professions  desire 
to  enrol^  in  their  service,  this  is  the  type  that  education 
needs.  ^  The  great  problem  of  the  teacher  is  to  keep  him- 
self in  this  class,  to  keep  himself  young,  to  preserve  the 
very  things  that  the  cynic  pleases  to  call  the  illusions  of 
his  youth.  And  so  much  do  I  desire  to  impress  these 
novitiates  into  our  calling  with  the  necessity  for  preserv- 
ing their  ideals  that  I  shall  ask  them  this  evening  to 
consider  with  me  some  things  which  would,  I  fear,  strike 
the  cynic  as  most  illusionary  and  impractical.  The  ini- 
tiation ceremonies  that  adjnitted  the  young  man  to  the 
privileges  and  duties  of  knighthood  included  the  taking 
of  certain  vows,  the  making  of  certain  pledges  of  devotion 
and  fidelity  to  the  fundamental  principles  for  which  chiv- 
alry stood.  And  I  should  like  this  evening  to  imagine 
that  these  graduates  are  undergoing  an  analogous  initia- 
tion into  the  privileges  and  duties  of  Schoolcraft,  and 


CRAPTSMANSmP   EST   TEACHING  3 

that  these  vows  which  I  shall  enumerate,  embody  some 
of  the  ideals  that  govern  the  work  of  that  craft. 

II 

And  the  first  of  these  vows  I  shall  call,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  the  vow  (^"artistry,"  —  the  pledge  that  the 
initiate  takes  to  do  the  work  that  his  hand  finds  to  do  in 
the  best  possible  manner,  without  reference  to  the  effort 
that  it  may  cost  or  to  the  reward  that  it  may  or  may  not 
bring. 

I  call  this  the  vow  of  artistry  because  itjepresents  the 
essential  attitude  of  the  artist  toward  his  work.  The 
cynic  tells  us  that  ideals  are  illusions  of  youth,  and  yet, 
the  other  day  I  saw  expressed  in  a  middle-aged  working- 
man  a  type  of  idealism  that  is  not  at  all  uncommon  in  this 
world.  He  was  a  house  painter ;  his  task  was  simply  the 
prosaic  job  of  painting  a  door ;  and  yet,  from  the  pains 
which  he  took  with  that  work,  an  observer  would  have 
concluded  that  it  was,  to  the  painter,  the  most  important 
task  in  the  world.  And  that,  after  all,  is  the  true  test  of 
craft  artistry:  to  the  true  craftsman  the  work  that  he  is 
doing  must  be  the  most  important  thing  that  can  be  done. 
One  of  the  best  teachers  that  I  know  is  that  kind  of  a 
craftsman  in  education.  A  student  was  once  sent  to 
observe  his  work.  He  was  giving  a  lesson  upon  the  "at- 
tribute complement"  to  an  eighth-grade  grammar  class. 
I  asked  the  student  afterward  what  she  had  got  from  her 
visit.    "Why,"  she  replied,  "that  man  taught  as  if  the 


4  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

very  greatest  achievement  in  life  would  be  to  get  his 
pupils  to  understand  the  attribute  complement,  —  and 
when  he  had  finished,  they  did  understand  it." 

In  a  narrower  sense,  this  vow  of  artistry  carries  with 
it  an  appreciation  of  the  value  of  technique.  From  the 
very  fact  of  their  normal  school  training,  these  graduates 
already  possess  a  certain  measure  of  skill,  a  certain 
mastery  of  the  technique  of  their  craft.  This  initial 
mastery  has  been  gained  in  actual  contact  with  the 
problems  of  school  work  in  their  practice  teaching. 
They  have  learned  some  of  the  rudiments;  they  have 
met  and  mastered  some  of  the  rougher,  cruder  difficul- 
ties. The  finer  skill,  the  deUcate  and  intangible  points 
of  technique,  they  must  acquire,  as  all  beginners  must 
acquire  them,  through  the  strenuous  processes  of  self- 
discipline  in  the  actual  work  of  the  years  that  are  to 
come.  This  is  a  process  that  takes  time,  energy,  con- 
stant and  persistent  application.  All  that  this  school 
or  any  school  can  do  for  its  students  in  this  respect  is 
to  start  them  upon  the  right  track  in  the  acquisition 
of  skill.  But  do  not  make  the  mistake  of  assuming 
that  this  is  a  small  and  unimportant  matter.  If  this 
school  did  nothing  more  than  this,  it  would  still  repay 
tenfold  the  cost  of  its  establishment  and  maintenance. 
Three  fom-ths  of  the  failures  in  a  world  that  sometimes 
seems  full  of  failures  are  due  to  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  a  wrong  start.  In  spite  of  the  growth  of  profes- 
sional training  for  teachers  within  the  past  fifty  years. 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  5 

many  of  our  lower  schools  are  still  filled  with  raw  recruits, 
fresh  from  the  high  schools  and  even  from  the  grades, 
who  must  learn  every  practical  lesson  of  teaching  through 
the  medium  of  their  own  mistakes.  Even  if  this  were 
all,  the  process  would  involve  a  tremendous  and  un- 
called-for waste.  But  this  is  not  all ;  for,  out  of  this 
multitude  of  untrained  teachers,  only  a  small  propor- 
tion ever  recognize  the  mistakes  that  they  make  and  try  \ 
to  correct  them. 

To  you  who  are  beginning  the  work  of  life,  the^astery 
of  technique  may  seem  a  comparatively  imimportant 
matter.  You  recognize  its  necessity,  of  course,  but 
you  think  of  it  as  something  of  a  mechanical  nature, 
—  an  integral  part  of  the  day's  work,  but  uninviting  in 
itself,  —  something  to  be  reduced  as  rapidly  as  possible 
to  the  plane  of  automatism  and  dismissed  from  the 
mind.  I  beUeve  that  you  will  outgrow  this  notion. 
As  you  go  on  with  your  work,  as  you  increase  in  skill, 
ever  and  ever  the  fascination  of  its  technique  will  take 
a  stronger  and  stronger  hold  upon  you.  This  is  the 
great  saving  principle  of  oiu"  workaday  life.  This  is 
the  factor  that  keeps  the  toiler  free  from  the  deadening 
effects  of  mechanical  routine.  It  is  the  factor  that 
keeps  the  farmer  at  his  plow,  the  artisan  at  his  bench, 
the  lawyer  at  his  desk,  the  artist  at  his  palette. 

I  once  worked  for  a  man  who  had  accumulated  a 
large  fortune.  At  the  age  of  seventy-five  he  divided 
this  fortune  among  his  children,  intending  to  retire; 


'li 


6  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

but  he  could  find  pleasure  and  comfort  only  in  the 
routine  of  business.  In  six  months  he  was  back  in  his 
office.  He  borrowed  twenty-five  thousand  dollars  on 
his  past  reputation  and  started  in  to  have  some  fun.  I 
was  his  only  employee  at  the  time,  and  I  sat  across  the 
big  double  desk  from  him,  writing  his  letters  and  keep- 
ing his  accounts.  He  would  sit  for  hours,  planning  for 
the  estabUshment  of  some  industry  or  running  out  the 
lines  that  would  entangle  some  old  adversary.  I  did 
not  stay  with  him  very  long,  but  before  I  left,  he  had  a 
half-dozen  thriving  industries  on  his  hands,  and  when 
he  died  three  years  later  he  had  accumulated  another 
fortune  of  over  a  million  dollars. 

That  is  an  example  of  what  I  mean  by  the  fascina- 
tion that  the  technique  of  one's  craft  may  come  to 
possess.  It  is  the  joy  of  doing  well  the  work  that  you 
know  how  to  do.  The  finer  points  of  technique,  — 
those  little  things  that  seem  so  trivial  in  themselves 
and  yet  which  mean  everything  to  skill  and  efficiency, 
—  what  pride  the  competent  artisan  or  the  master 
artist  takes  in  these !  How  he  dehghts  to  revel  in  the 
jargon  of  his  craft !  How  he  prides  himself  in  possessing 
the  knowledge  and  the  technical  skill  that  are  denied  the 
layman ! 

I  am  aware  that  I  am  somewhat  imorthodox  in  urg- 
ing this  view  of  your  work  upon  you.  Teachers  have 
been  encouraged  to  believe  that  details  are  not  only 
unimportant  but  stultifying,  —  that  teaching  ability  is 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  7 

a  function  of  personality,  and  not  a  product  of  a  tech- 
nique that  must  be  acquired  through  the  strenuous 
discipline  of  experience.  One  of  the  most  skillful  ^ 
teachers  of  my  acquaintance  is  a  woman  down  in  the  /v^w 
grades.  I  have  watched  her  work  for  days  at  a  time,  ^_rjvv 
striving  to  learn  its  secret.  I  can  find  nothing  there 
that  is  due  to  genius,  —  unless  we  accept  George  Eliot's 
definition  of  genius  as  an  infinite  capacity  for  receiving 
discipline.  That  teacher's  success,  by  her  own  state- 
ment, is  due  to  a  mastery  of  technique,  gained  through 
successive  years  of  growth  checked  by  a  rigid  respon- 
sibiUty  for  results.  She  has  found  out  by  repeated  trial 
bow  to  do  her  work  in  the  best  way ;  she  has  discovered 
the  attitude  toward  her  pupils  that  will  get  the  best 
work  from  them,  —  the  clearest  methods  of  presenting 
subject  matter;  the  most  effective  ways  in  which  to 
drill;  how  to  use  text-books  and  make  study  periods 
issue  in  something  besides  mischief ;  and,  more  than  all 
else,  how  to  do  these  things  without  losing  sight  of  the 
true  end  of  education.  Very  frequently  I  have  taken 
visiting  school  men  to  see  this  teacher's  work.  Invari- 
ably after  leaving  her  room  they  have  turned  to  me 
with  such  expressions  as  these:  "A  bom  teacher!'* 
"What  interest!"  "What  a  personality !"  "What  a 
voice  ! "  —  everything,  in  fact,  except  this,  —  which 
would  have  been  the  truth:  "What  a  tribute  to  years 
of  effort  and  struggle  and  self -discipline  ! " 
I  have  a  theory  which  I  have  never  exploited  very 


8  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

seriously,  but  I  will  give  it  to  you  for  what  it  is  worth. 
It  is  this:  elementary  education  especially  needs  a 
literary  interpretation.  It  needs  a  literary  artist  who 
will  portray  to  the  public  in  the  form  of  fiction  the  real 
life  of  the  elementary  school,  —  who  will  idealize  the 
technique  of  teaching  as  Kipling  idealized  the  technique 
of  the  marine  engineer,  as  Balzac  idealized  the  technique 
of  the  journalist,  as  Du  Maurier  and  a  hundred  other 
noveUsts  have  idealized  the  technique  of  the  artist.  We 
need  some  one  to  exploit  our  shop-talk  on  the  reading 
pubUc,  and  to  show  up  our  work  as  you  and  I  know  it, 
not  as  you  and  I  have  been  told  by  laymen  that  it  ought 
to  be,  —  a  literature  of  the  elementary  school  with  the 
cant  and  the  platitudes  and  the  goody-goodyism  left 
out,  and  in  their  place  something  of  the  virility,  of  the 
serious  study,  of  the  manful  effort  to  solve  difficult 
problems,  of  the  real  and  vital  achievements  that  are 
characteristic  of  thousands  of  elementary  schools  through- 
out the  country  to-day. 

At  first  you  will  be  fascinated  by  the  novelty  of  your 
work.  But  that  soon  passes  away.  Then  comes  the 
struggle,  —  then  comes  the  period,  be  it  long  or  short, 
when  you  will  work  with  your  eyes  upon  the  clock, 
when  you  will  count  the  weeks,  the  days,  the  hours, 
the  minutes  that  he  between  you  and  vacation  time. 
Then  will  be  the  need  for  all  the  strength  and  all  the 
energy  that  you  can  summon  to  your  aid.  Fail  here, 
and  your  fate  is  decided  once  and  for  all.     If,  in  your 


CRAPTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  9 

work,  you  never  get  beyond  this  stage,  you  will  never 
become  the  true  craftsman.  You  will  never  taste  the 
joy  that  is  vouchsafed  the  expert,  the  efl&cient  crafts- 
man. 

The  length  of  this  period  varies  with  different  indi- 
viduals. Some  teachers  "find  themselves"  quickly. 
They  seem  to  settle  at  once  into  the  teaching  attitude. 
With  others  is  a  long,  uphill  fight.  But  it  is  safe  to 
say  that  if,  at  the  end  of  three  years,  your  eyes  still 
habitually  seek  the  clock,  —  if,  at  the  end  of  that  time, 
your  chief  reward  is  the  check  that  comes  at  the  end  of 
every  fourth  week,  —  then  your  doom  is  sealed. 

Ill 

And  the  second  vow  that  I  should  urge  these  gradu- 
ates to  take  is  the  vow  of  fidelity  to  the  spirit  of  their 
calling.  We  have  heard  a  great  deal  in  recent  years 
about  making  education  a  profession.  I  do  not  like 
.  that  term  myself.  Education  is  not  a  profession  in  the 
I  sense  that  medicine  and  law  are  professions.  It  is 
rather  a  craft,  for  its  duty  is  to  produce,  to  mold,  to 
fashion,  to  transform  a  certain  raw  material  into  a  use- 
ful product.  And,  like  all  crafts,  education  must 
possess  the  craft  spirit.  It  must  have  a  certain  code  of 
craft  ethics;  it  must  have  certain  standards  of  craft 
excellence  and  efficiency.  And  in  these  the  normal 
school  must  instruct  its  students,  and  to  these  it  should 
secure  their  pledge  of  loyalty  and  fidelity  and  devotion. 


10  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN    TEACHING 

A  true  conception  of  this  craft  spirit  in  education  is 
one  of  the  most  priceless  possessions  of  the  young  teacher, 
for  it  will  fortify  him  against  every  criticism  to  which 
his  calling  is  subjected.  It  is  revealing  no  secret  to  tell 
you  that  the  teacher's  work  is  not  held  in  the  highest 
regard  by  the  vast  majority  of  men  and  women  in  other 
walks  of  life.  I  shall  not  stop  to  inquire  why  this  is  so, 
but  the  fact  cannot  be  doubted,  and  every  now  and 
again  some  incident  of  Ufe,  trifling  perhaps  in  itself, 
will  bring  it  to  your  notice;  but  most  of  all,  perhaps 
you  will  be  vexed  and  incensed  by  the  very  thing  that 
is  meant  to  put  you  at  your  ease  —  the  patronizing 
attitude  which  your  friends  in  other  walks  of  life  will 
assume  toward  you  and  toward  your  work. 

When  will  the  good  public  cease  to  insult  the  teacher's 
calhng  with  empty  flattery?  When  will  men  who 
would  never  for  a  moment  encourage  their  own  sons 
to  enter  the  work  of  the  public  schools,  cease  to  tell  us 
that  education  is  the  greatest  and  noblest  of  all  human 
callings?  Education  does  not  need  these  compliments. 
The  teacher  does  not  need  them.  If  he  is  a  master  of 
his  craft,  he  knows  what  education  means,  —  he  knows 
this  far  better  than  any  layman  can  tell  him.  And 
what  boots  it  to  him,  if,  with  all  this  cant  and  hypocrisy 
about  the  dignity  and  worth  of  his  caUing,  he  can  some- 
times hold  his  position  only  at  the  sacrifice  of  his  self- 
respect  ? 

But  what  is  the  relation  of  the  craft  spirit  to  these 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING  II 

facts?  Simply  this:  the  true  craftsman,  by  the  very 
fact  that  he  is  a  true  craftsman,  is  immune  to  these 
influences.  What  does  the  true  artist  care  for  the  plau- 
dits or  the  sneers  of  the  crowd  ?  True,  he  seeks  com- 
mendation and  welcomes  applause,  for  your  real  artist 
is  usually  extremely  human;  but  he  seeks  this  com- 
mendation from  another  source  —  from  a  source  that 
metes  it  out  less  lavishly  and  yet  with  unconditioned 
candor.  He  seeks  the  commendation  of  his  fellow- 
workmen,  the  applause  of  "those  who  know,  and  always 
will  know,  and  always  will  understand."  He  plays  to 
the  pit  and  not  to  the  gallery,  for  he  knows  that  when 
the  pit  really  approves  the  gallery  will  often  echo  and 
reecho  the  applause,  albeit  it  has  not  the  sUghtest  con- 
ception of  what  the  whole  thing  is  about. 

What  education  stands  in  need  of  to-day  is  just  this : 
a  stimulating  and  pervasive  craft  spirit.  If  a  human 
caUing  would  win  the  world's  respect,  it  must  first 
respect  itself ;  and  the  more  thoroughly  it  respects  itself, 
the  greater  will  be  the  measure  of  homage  that  the 
world  accords  it.  In  one  of  the  educational  journals  a 
few  years  ago,  the  editors  ran  a  series  of  articles  under 
the  general  caption,  "Why  I  am  a  teacher."  It  re- 
minded me  of  the  spirited  discussion  that  one  of  the 
Sunday  papers  started  some  years  since  on  the  world- 
old  query,  "Is  marriage  a  failure?"  And  some  of  the 
articles  were  fully  as  sickening  in  their  harrowing  details 
as  were  some  of  the  whining  matrimonial  confessions  of 


12  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

the  latter  series.  But  the  point  that  I  wish  to  make  is 
this:  your  true  craftsman  in  education  never  stops  to 
ask  himself  such  questions.  There  are  some  men  to 
whom  Schoolcraft  is  a  mistress.  They  love  it,  and  their 
devotion  is  no  make-believe,  fashioned  out  of  sentiment, 
and  donned  for  the  purpose  of  hiding  inefl&ciency  or 
native  indolence.  They  love  it  as  some  men  love  Art, 
and  others  Business,  and  others  War.  They  do  not 
stop  to  ask  the  reason  why,  to  count  the  cost,  or  to 
care  a  fig  what  people  think.  They  are  properly  jealous 
of  their  special  knowledge,  gained  through  years  of 
special  study;  they  are  justly  jealous  of  their  special 
skill  gained  through  years  of  discipline  and  training. 
They  resent  the  interference  of  laymen  in  matters  purely 
professional.  They  resent  such  interference  as  would 
a  reputable  physician,  a  reputable  lawyer,  a  reputable 
engineer.  They  resent  officious  patronage  and  "fussy" 
meddling.  They  resent  all  these  things  manfully,  vigor- 
ously. But  your  true  craftsman  will  not  whine.  If  the 
conditions  under  which  he  works  do  not  suit  him,  he 
will  fight  for  their  betterment,  but  he  will  not  whine. 

IV 

And  yet  this  vow  of  fidelity  and  devotion  to  the 
spirit  of  Schoolcraft  would  be  an  empty  form  without 
the  two  complementary  vows  that  give  it  worth  and 
meaning.  These  are  the'vaw  of  poverty  and  the  vow 
of  service.    It  is  through   these  that  the  true   craft 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  I3 

spirit  must  find  its  most  vigorous  expression  and  its 
only  justification.  The  very  corner  stone  of  Schoolcraft 
is  service,  and  one  fundamental  lesson  that  the  tyro  in 
Schoolcraft  must  learn,  especially  in  this  materialistic 
age,  is  that  the  value  of  service  is  not  to  be  measured 
in  dollars  and  cents.  In  this  respect,  teaching  resembles 
art,  music,  literature,  discovery,  invention,  and  pure 
science;  for,  if  all  the  workers  in  all  of  these  branches 
of  human  activity  got  together  and  demanded  of  the 
world  the  real  fruits  of  their  self-sacrifice  and  labor,  — 
if  they  demanded  all  the  riches  and  comforts  and  ameni- 
ties of  hfe  that  have  flowed  directly  or  indirectly  from 
their  efforts,  —  there  would  be  little  left  for  the  rest  of 
mankind.  Each  of  these  activities  is  represented  by  a 
craft  spirit  that  recognizes  this  great  truth.  The  artist 
or  the  scientist  who  has  an  itching  palm,  who  prosti- 
tutes his  craft  for  the  sake  of  worldly  gain,  is  quickly 
relegated  to  the  oblivion  that  he  deserves.  He  loses 
caste,  and  the  caste  of  craft  is  more  precious  to  your 
true  craftsman  than  all  the  gold  of  the  modern  Midas. 
You  may  think  that  this  is  all  very  well  to  talk  about, 
but  that  it  bears  little  agreement  to  the  real  condi- 
tions. Let  me  tell  you  that  you  are  mistaken.  Go  ask 
Rontgen  why  he  did  not  keep  the  X-rays  a  secret  to  be 
exploited  for  his  own  personal  gain.  Ask  the  shade  of 
the  great  Helmholtz  why  he  did  not  patent  the  ophthal- 
moscope. Go  to  the  University  of  Wisconsin  and  ask 
Professor  Babcock  why  he  gave  to  the  world  without 


14  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

money  and  without  price  the  Babcock  test  —  an  invention 
which  is  estimated  to  mean  more  than  one  million 
dollars  every  year  to  the  farmers  and  dairymen  of  that 
state  alone.  Ask  the  men  on  the  geological  survey  who 
laid  bare  the  great  gold  deposits  of  Alaska  why  they 
did  not  leave  a  thankless  and  Ul-paid  service  to  acquire 
the  wealth  that  lay  at  their  feet.  Because  commer- 
cialized ideals  govern  the  world  that  we  know,  we 
think  that  all  men's  eyes  are  jaundiced,  and  that  all 
men's  vision  is  circumscribed  by  the  milled  rim  of 
the  almighty  dollar.  But  we  are  sadly,  miserably 
mistaken. 

Do  you  think  that  these  ideals  of  service  from  which 
every  taint  of  self-seeking  and  commerciaUsm  have  been 
eliminated  —  do  you  think  that  these  are  mere  figments 
of  the  impractical  imagination?  Go  ask  Perry  Holden 
out  in  Iowa.  Go  ask  Luther  Burbank  out  in  CaUfornia. 
Go  to  any  agricultural  college  in  this  broad  land  and 
ask  the  scientists  who  are  doing  more  than  all  other 
forces  combined  to  increase  the  wealth  of  the  people. 
Go  to  the  scientific  departments  at  Washington  where 
men  of  genius  are  toiling  for  a  pittance.  Ask  them 
how  much  of  the  wealth  for  which  they  are  responsible 
they  propose  to  put  into  their  own  pockets.  What  will 
be  their  answer?  They  will  tell  you  that  all  they  ask 
is  a  living  wage,  a  chance  to  work,  and  the  just  recog- 
nition of  their  services  by  those  who  know  and  appre- 
ciate and  understand. 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  1 5 

But  let  me  hasten  to  add  that  these  men  claim  no 
especial  merit  for  their  altruism  and  imselfishness, 
They  do  not  pose  before  the  worid  as  philanthropists. 
They  do  not  strut  about  and  preen  themselves  as  who 
would  say:  "See  what  a  noble  man  am  I !  See  how  I 
sacrifice  myself  for  the  welfare  of  society!"  The  atti- 
tude of  cant  and  pose  is  entirely  aUen  to  the  spirit  of 
true  service.  Their  delight  is  in  doing,  in  serving,  in 
producing.  But  beyond  this,  they  have  the  faults  and 
frailties  of  their  kind,  —  save  one,  —  the  sin  of  covetous- 
ness.  And  again,  aU  that  they  ask  of  the  world  is  a 
living  wage,  and  the  privilege  to  serve. 

And  that  is  all  that  the  true  craftsman  in  education 
asks.  The  man  or  woman  with  the  itching  palm  has 
no  place  in  the  schoolroom,  —  no  place  in  any  craft 
whose  kejmote  is  service.  It  is  true  that  the  teacher 
does  not  receive  to-day,  in  all  parts  of  our  country,  a 
living  wage ;  and  it  is  equally  true  that  society  at  large 
is  the  greatest  sufferer  because  of  its  penurious  policy 
in  this  regard.  I  should  applaud  and  support  every 
movement  that  has  for  its  purpose  the  raising  of  teachers' 
salaries  to  the  level  of  those  paid  in  other  branches  of 
professional  service.  Society  should  do  this  for  its  own 
benefit  and  in  its  own  defense,  not  as  a  matter  of  charity 
to  the  men  and  women  who,  among  all  public  servants, 
should  be  the  last  to  be  accused  of  feeding  gratuitously 
at  the  public  crib.  I  should  approve  all  honest  efforts 
of  school  men  and  school  women  toward  this  much- 


1 6  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

desired  end.  But  whenever  men  and  women  enter 
Schoolcraft  because  of  the  material  rewards  that  it 
offers,  the  virtue  will  have  gone  out  of  our  calling,  — 
just  as  the  virtue  went  out  of  the  Church  when,  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  the  Church  attracted  men,  not  because 
of  the  opportunities  that  it  offered  for  social  service,  but 
because  of  the  opportimities  that  it  offered  for  the  acqui- 
sition of  wealth  and  temporal  power,  —  just  as  the 
virtue  has  gone  out  of  certain  other  once-noble  profes- 
sions that  have  commercialized  their  standards  and 
tarnished  their  ideals. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  one  condemns  the  man  who 
devotes  his  life  to  the  accumulation  of  property.  The 
tremendous  strides  that  our  country  has  made  in  ma- 
terial civilization  have  been  conditioned  in  part  by  this 
type  of  genius.  Creative  genius  must  always  compel 
our  admiration  and  our  respect.  It  may  create  a  world 
epic,  a  matchless  symphony  of  tones  or  pigments,  a 
scientific  theory  of  tremendous  grasp  and  limitless  scope ; 
or  it  may  create  a  vast  industrial  system,  a  commercial 
enterprise  of  gigantic  proportions,  a  powerful  organiza- 
tion of  capital.  Genius  is  pretty  much  the  same  wherever 
we  find  it,  and  everywhere  we  of  the  common  clay  must 
recognize  its  worth. 

The  grave  defect  in  our  American  life  is  not  that  we 
are  hero  worshipers,  but  rather  that  we  worship  but 
one  type  of  hero ;  we  recognize  but  one  type  of  achieve- 
ment ;  we  see  but  one  sort  of  genius.    For  two  genera- 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  I7 

tions  our  youth  have  been  led  to  believe  that  there  is 
only  one  ambition  that  is  worth  while,  —  the  ambition 
of  property.  Success  at  any  price  is  the  ideal  that  has 
been  held  up  before  ovu:  boys  and  girls.  And  to-day  we 
are  reaping  the  rewards  of  this  distorted  and  unjust 
view  of  life. 

I  recently  met  a  man  who  had  lived  for  some  years 
in  the  neighborhood  of  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis,  —  a 
section  that  is  peopled,  as  you  know,  yery  largely  by 
Scandinavian  immigrants  and  their  descendants.  This 
man  told  me  that  he  had  been  particularly  impressed 
by  the  high  idealism  of  the  Norwegian  people.  His 
business  brought  him  in  contact  with  Norwegian  immi- 
grants in  what  are  called  the  lower  walks  of  life,  —  with 
workingmen  and  servant  girls,  —  and  he  made  it  a  point 
to  ask  each  of  these  young  men  and  young  women  the 
same  question.  "Tell  me,"  he  would  say,  "who  are 
the  great  men  of  your  country?  Who  are  the  men 
toward  whom  the  youth  of  your  land  are  led  to  look  for 
inspiration?  Who  are  the  men  whom  your  boys  are 
led  to  imitate  and  emulate  and  admire?"  And  he  said 
that  he  almost  always  received  the  same  answer  to  this 
question  :  the  great  names  of  the  Norwegian  nation  that 
had  been  burned  upon  the  minds  even  of  these  working- 
men  and  servant  girls  were  just  four  in  number :  Ole 
Bull,  Bjomson,  Ibsen,  Nansen.  Over  and  over  again  he 
asked  that  same  question;  over  and  over  again  he 
received  the  same  answer:  Ole  Bull,  Bjomson,  Ibsen, 
c 


l8  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

Nansen.  A  great  musician,  a  great  novelist,  a  great 
dramatist,  a  great  scientist. 

And  I  conjectured  as  I  heard  of  this  incident,  What 
would  be  the  answer  if  the  youth  of  our  land  were 
asked  that  question:  "Who  are  the  great  men  of  your 
country?  What  type  of  achievement  have  you  been 
led  to  imitate  and  emulate  and  admire?"  How  many 
of  our  boys  and  girls  have  even  heard  of  our  great  men 
in  the  world  of  culture,  —  unless,  indeed,  such  men 
lived  a  half  century  ago  and  have  got  into  the  school 
readers  by  this  time  ?  How  many  of  our  boys  and  girls 
have  ever  heard  of  MacDowell,  or  James,  or  Whistler, 
or  Sargent? 

I  have  said  that  the  teacher  must  take  the  vow  of 
service.  What  does  this  imply  except  that  the  oppor- 
tunity for  service,  the  privilege  of  serving,  should  be 
the  opportunity  that  one  seeks,  and  that  the  achieve- 
ments toward  which  one  aspires  should  be  the  achieve- 
ments of  serving?  The  keynote  of  service  lies  in  self- 
sacrifice,  —  in  self-forgetfulness,  rather,  —  in  merging 
one's  own  Ufe  in  the  lives  of  others.  The  attitude  of  the 
true  teacher  in  this  respect  is  very  similar  to  the  atti- 
tude of  the  true  parent.  In  so  far  as  the  parent  feels 
himself  responsible  for  the  character  of  his  children,  in 
so  far  as  he  holds  himself  culpable  for  their  shortcomings 
and  instrumental  in  shaping  their  virtues,  he  loses  him- 
self in  his  children.  What  we  term  parental  affection 
is,  I  believe,  in  part  an  outgrowth  of  this  feeling  of 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  I9 

resp>onsibility.  The  situation  is  precisely  the  same  with 
the  teacher.  It  is  when  the  teacher  begins  to  feel  him- 
self responsible  for  the  growth  and  development  of  his 
pupils  that  he  begins  to  find  himself  in  the  work  of 
teaching.  It  is  then  that  the  effective  devotion  to  his 
pupils  has  its  birth.  The  affection  that  comes  prior  to 
this  is,  I  think,  very  likely  to  be  of  the  sentimental  and 
transitory  sort. 

In  education,  as  in  life,  we  play  altogether  too  care- 
lessly with  the  word  "love."  The  test  of  taye  devotion 
is  self-forgetfulness.  Until  the  teacher  reaches  that 
point,  he  is  conscious  of  two  distinct  elements  in  his 
work,  —  himself  and  his  pupils.  When  that  time 
comes,  his  own  ego  drops  from  view,  and  he  lives  in  and 
for  his  pupils.  The  young  teacher's  tendency  is  always 
to  ask  himself,  **_Po  my  pupils  like  me?"  Let  me  say 
that  this  is  beside  the  question.  It  is  not,  from  his  t 
'  standpoint,  a  matter  of  the  pupils  liking  their  teacher,  \ 
but  of  the  teacher  liking  his  pupils.  That,  I  take  it, 
must  be  constantly  the  point  of  view.  If  you  ask  the 
other  question  first,  you  will  be  tempted  to  gain  your 
end  by  means  that  are  almost  certain  to  prove  fatal, 
—  to  bribe  and  pet  and  cajole  and  flatter,  to  resort 
to  the  dangerous  expedient  of  playing  to  the  gallery; 
but  the  liking  that  you  get  in  this  way  is  not  worth 
the  price  that  you  pay  for  it.  I  should  caution  young ' 
teachers  against  the  short-sighted  educational  theories 
that  are  in  the  air  to-day,  and  that  definitely  recom- 


20  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

mend  this  attitude.  They  may  sound  sweet,  but  they 
are  soft  and  sticky  in  practice.  Better  be  guided  by 
instinct  than  by  "half-baked"  theory.  I  have  no  dis- 
position to  criticize  the  attempts  that  have  been  made 
to  rationalize  educational  practice,  but  a  great  deal  of 
^cpntemporary  theory  starts  at  the  wrong  end.  It  has 
failed  to  go  to  the  sources  of  actual  experience  for  its 
data.  I  know  a  father  and  mother  who  have  brought 
up  ten  children  successfully,  and  I  may  say  that  you 
could  learn  more  about  managing  boys  and  girls 
from  observing  their  methods  than  from  a  half-dozen 
prominent  books  on  educational  theory  that  I  could 
name. 

And  so  I  repeat  that  the  true  test  of  the  teacher's 
fidelity  to  this  vow  of  service  is  the  degree  in  which  he 
loses  himself  in  his  pupils,  —  the  degree  in  which  he 
lives  and  toUs  and  sacrifices  for  them  just  for  the  pure 
joy  that  it  brings  him.  Once  you  have  tasted  this  joy, 
no  carping  sneer  of  the  cynic  can  cause  you  to  lose  faith 
in  your  calling.  Material  rewards  sink  into  insignifi- 
cance. You  no  longer  work  with  your  eyes  upon  the 
clock.  The  hours  are  all  too  short  for  the  work  that 
you  would  do.  You  are  as  light-hearted  and  as  happy 
as  a  child,  —  for  you  have  lost  yourself  to  find  yourself, 
and  you  have  found  yourself  to  lose  yourself. 


CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING  21 

V 

And  the^  final  vow  that  I  would  have  these  graduates 
take  is  the  vow  of  ideahsm,  —  the  pledge  of  fideUty  and 
devotion  to  certain  fundamental  principles  of  life  which 
it  is  the  business  of  education  carefully  to  cherish  and 
nourish  and  transmit  untarnished  to  each  succeeding 
generation.  These  but  formulate  in  another  way  what 
the  vows  that  I  have  aheady  discussed  mean  by  impU- 
cation.  One  is  the  ideal  of  social  service,  upon  which 
education  must,  in  the  last  analysis,  rest  its  case.  The 
second  is  the  ideal  of  science,  —  the  pledge  of  devotion 
to  that  persistent  unwearying  search  after  truth,  of 
loyalty  to  the  great  principles  of  unbiased  observation 
and  unprejudiced  experiment,  of  willingness  to  accept 
the  truth  and  be  governed  by  it,  no  matter  how  dis- 
agreeable it  may  be,  no  matter  how  roughly  it  may 
trample  down  our  pet  doctrines  and  our  preconceived 
theories.  The  nineteenth  century  left  us  a  glorious  heri- 
tage in  the  great  discoveries  and  inventions  that  science 
has  estabhshed.  These  must  not  be  lost  to  posterity; 
but  far  better  lose  them  than  lose  the  spirit  of  free  in- 
quiry, the  spirit  of  untrammeled  investigation,  the  noble 
devotion  to  truth  for  its  own  sake  that  made  these  dis- 
coveries and  inventions  possible. 

It  is  these  ideals  that  education  must  perpetuate, 
and  if  education  is  successfully  to  perpetuate  them,  the 
teacher  must  himself  be  filled  with  a  spirit  of  devotion 


22  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

to  the  things  that  they  represent.  Science  has  triumphed 
over  superstition  and  fraud  and  error.  It  is  the  teacher's 
duty  to  see  to  it  that  this  triumph  is  permanent,  that 
mankind  does  not  again  fall  back  into  the  black  pit  of 
ignorance  and  superstition. 

And  so  it  is  the  teacher's  province  to  hold  aloft  the 
torch,  to  stand  against  the  materialistic  tendencies  that 
would  reduce  all  human  standards  to  the  common  de- 
nominator of  the  dollar,  to  insist  at  all  times  and  at  all 
places  that  this  nation  of  ours  was  founded  upon  ideal- 
ism, and  that,  whatever  may  be  the  prevailing  tendencies 
of  the  time,  its  children  shall  still  learn  to  hve  "  among 
the  sunUt  peaks."  And  if  the  teacher  is  imbued  with 
this  idealism,  although  his  work  may  take  him  very 
close  to  Mother  Earth,  he  may  still  lift  his  head  above 
the  fog  and  look  the  morning  sun  squarely  in  the  face. 


n 

Optimism  m  Teaching^ 

Although  the  month  is  March  and  not  November,  it  is 
never  unseasonable  to  count  up  the  blessings  for  which  it 
is  well  to  be  thankful.  In  fact,  from  the  standpoint  of 
education,  the  spring  is  perhaps  the  appropriate  time  to 
perform  this  very  pleasant  function.  As  if  still  further  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  education,  like  civilization,  is  an 
artificial  thing,  we  have  reversed  the  operations  of  Mother 
Nature :  we  sow  our  seed  in  the  fall  and  cultivate  our 
crops  during  the  winter  and  reap  our  harvests  in  the 
spring.  I  may  be  pardoned,  therefore, ,  for  making  the 
theme  of  my  discussion  a  brief  review  of  the  elements  of 
growth  and  victory  for  which  the  educator  of  to-day  may 
justly  be  grateful,  with,  perhaps,  a  few  suggestions  of 
what  the  next  few  years  may  reasonably  be  expected  to 
bring  forth. 

And  this  course  is  all  the  more  necessary  because, 

I  believe,  the  teaching  profession  is  unduly  prone  to 

pessimism.     One  might  think  at  first  glance  that  the 

contrary  would  be  true.     We  are  surrounded  on   every 

side  by  youth.    Youth  is  the  material  with  which  we 

*  An  address  before  the  Oswego,  New  York,  County  Council  of  Educa- 
tion, March  28,  1908. 

23 


24  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

constantly  deal.  Youth  is  buoyant,  hopeful,  exu- 
berant ;  and  yet,  with  this  material  constantly  sur- 
rounding us,  we  frequently  j&nd  the  task  wearisome 
and  apparently  hopeless.  The  reason  is  not  far  to  seek. 
Youth  is  not  only  buoyant,  it  is  unsophisticated,  it  is 
inexperienced,  in  many  important  particulars  it  is  crude. 
Some  of  its  tastes  must  necessarily,  in  our  judgment, 
hark  back  to  the  primitive,  to  the  barbaric.  Ours  is 
continuaUy  the  task  to  civilize,  to  sophisticate,  to  refine 
this  raw  material.  But,  unfortimately  for  us,  the  effort 
that  we  put  forth  does  not  always  bring  results  that 
we  can  see  and  weigh  and  measure.  The  hopefulness 
of  our  material  is  overshadowed  not  infrequently  by  its 
crudeness.  We  take  each  generation  as  it  comes  to  us. 
We  strive  to  lift  it  to  the  plane  that  civilized  society 
has  reached.  We  do  our  best  and  pass  it  on,  mindful 
of  the  many  inadequacies,  perhaps  of  the  many  failures, 
in  our  work.  We  turn  to  the  new  generation  that  takes 
its  place.  We  hope  for  better  materials,  but  we  find  no 
improvement. 

And  so  you  and  I  reflect  in  our  occasional  moments 
of  pessimism  that  generic  situation  which  inheres  in  the 
very  work  that  we  do.  The  constantly  accelerated 
progress  of  civilization  lays  constantly  increasing  bur- 
dens upon  us.  In  some  way  or  another  we  must  ac- 
complish the  task.  In  some  way  or  another  we  must 
lift  the  child  to  the  level  of  society,  and,  as  society  is 
reaching  a  continually  higher  and  higher  level,  so  the 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  2$ 

distance  through  which  the  child  must  be  raised  is 
ever  increased.  We  would  like  to  think  that  all  this 
progress  in  the  race  would  come  to  mean  that  we  should 
be  able  to  take  the  child  at  a  higher  level;  but  you 
who  deal  with  children  know  from  experience  the  prin- 
ciple for  which  the  biologist  Weismann  stands  sponsor — 
the  principle,  namely,  that  acquired  characteristics 
are  not  inherited ;  that  whatever  changes  may  be 
wrought  during  life  in  the  brains  and  nerves  and 
muscles  of  the  present  generation  cannot  be  passed  on 
to  its  successor  save  through  the  same  laborious  process 
of  acquisition  and  training ;  that,  however  far  the 
civilization  of  the  race  may  progress,  education,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  conserve  and  transmit  this  civilization, 
must  always  begin  with  the  "same  old  child." 

This,  I  take  it,  is  the  deep-lying  cause  of  the  school- 
master's pessimism.  In  our  work  we  are  constantly 
struggling  against  that  same  inertia  which  held  the 
race  in  bondage  for  how  many  millenniums  only  the 
evolutionist  can  approximate  a  guess,  —  that  inertia  of 
the  primitive,  imtutored  mind  which  we  to-day  know 
as  the  mind  of  childhood,  but  which,  for  thousands  of 
generations,  was  the  only  kind  of  a  mind  that  man 
possessed.  This  inertia  has  been  conquered  at  various 
times  in  the  course  of  recorded  history,  —  in  Egypt 
and  China  and  India,  in  Chaldea  and  Assyria,  in 
Greece  and  Rome,  —  conquered  only  again  to  reassert 
itself  and  drive  man  back  into  barbarism.    Now  we  of 


26  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

the  Western  world  have  conquered  it,  let  us  hope,  for 
all  time;  for  we  of  the  Western  world  have  dis- 
covered an  effective  method  of  holding  it  in  abeyance, 
and  this  method  is  universal  public  education. 

Let  Germany  close  her  pubhc  schools,  and  in  two 
generations  she  will  lapse  back  into  the  semi-darkness 
of  medievahsm;  let  her  close  both  her  public  schools 
and  her  universities,  and  three  generations  will  fetch 
her  face  to  face  with  the  Dark  Ages;  let  her  destroy 
her  libraries  and  break  into  ruin  all  of  her  works  of  art, 
all  of  her  existing  triumphs  of  technical  knowledge  and 
skill,  from  which  a  few,  self-tutored,  might  glean  the 
wisdom  that  is  every  one's  to-day,  and  Germany  will 
soon  become  the  home  of  a  savage  race,  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  Tacitus  and  Caesar.  Let  Italy  close  her  public 
schools,  and  Italy  will  become  the  same  discordant 
jumble  of  petty  states  that  it  was  a  century  ago,  — 
again  to  await,  this  time  perhaps  for  centuries  or  mil- 
lenniums, another  Garibaldi  and  Victor  Emmanuel  to 
work  her  regeneration.  Let  Japan  close  her  public 
schools,  and  Japan  in  two  generations  will  be  a  bar- 
baric kingdom  of  the  Shoguns,  shorn  of  every  vestige  of 
power  and  prestige,  —  the  easy  victim  of  the  machina- 
tions of  Western  diplomats.  Let  our  country  cease  in  its 
•work  of  education,  and  these  United  States  must  needs 
pass  through  the  reverse  stages  of  their  growth  imtil 
another  race  of  savages  shall  roam  through  the  un- 
broken forest,  now  and  then  to  reach  the  shores  of 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  2? 

ocean  and  gaze  through  the  centuries,  eastward,  to 
catch  a  glimpse  of  the  new  Columbus.  Like  the  moving 
pictures  of  the  kinetoscope  when  the  reels  are  reversed, 
is  the  picture  that  imagination  can  unroll  if  we  grant 
the  possibility  of  a  lapse  from  civilization  to  savagery. 

And  so  when  we  take  the  broader  view,  we  quickly 
see  that,  in  spite  of  our  pessimism,  we  are  doing  some- 
thing in  the  world.  We  are  part  of  that  machine  which 
civilization  has  invented  and  is  slowly  perfecting  to 
preserve  itself.  We  may  be  a  very  small  part,  but,  so 
long  as  the  responsibility  for  a  single  child  rests  upon 
us,  we  are  not  an  unimportant  part.  Society  must 
reckon  with  you  and  me  perhaps  in  an  infinitesimal 
degree,  but  it  must  reckon  with  the  institution  which 
we  represent  as  it  reckons  with  no  other  institution  that 
it  has  reared  to  subserve  its  needs. 

In  a  certain  sense  these  statements  are  platitudes. 
We  have  repeated  them  over  and  over  again  until  the 
words  have  lost  their  tremendous  significance.  And  it 
behooves  us  now  and  again  to  revive  the  old  substance 
in  a  new  form,  —  to  come  afresh  to  a  self-consciousness 
of  our  fimction.  It  is  not  good  for  any  man  to  hold  a 
debased  and  inferior  opinion  of  himself  or  of  his  work, 
and  in  the  field  of  schoolcraft  it  is  easy  to  fall  into  this 
self-depreciating  habit  of  thought.  We  cannot  hope 
that  the  general  public  will  ever  come  to  view  our  work 
in  the  true  perspective  that  I  have  very  briefly  out- 
lined.   It  would  probably  not  be  wise  to  promulgate 


28  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

publicly  SO  pronounced  an  affirmation  of  our  function 
and  of  our  worth.  The  popular  inind  must  think  in 
concrete  details  rather  than  in  comprehensive  principles, 
when  the  subject  of  thought  is  a  specialized  vocation. 
You  and  I  have  crude  ideas,  no  doubt,  of  the  lawyer's 
function,  of  the  physician's  function,  of  the  clergyman's 
function.  Not  less  crude  are  their  ideas  of  our  func- 
tion. Even  when  they  patronize  us  by  sa3dng  that  our 
work  is  the  noblest  that  any  man  or  woman  would 
engage  in,  they  have  but  a  vague  and  shadowy  per- 
ception of  its  real  significance.  I  doubt  not  that,  with 
the  majority  of  those  who  thus  pat  us  verbally  upon 
the  back,  the  words  that  they  use  are  words  only.  They 
do  not  envy  us  our  privileges,  —  unless  it  is  our  summer 
vacations,  —  nor  do  they  encourage  their  sons  to  enter 
service  in  our  craft.  The  popular  mind  —  the  nontech- 
nical mind, — must  work  in  the  concrete; — it  must  have 
visible  evidences  of  power  and  influence  before  it  pays 
homage  to  a  man  or  to  an  institution. 

Throughout  the  German  empire  the  traveler  is  brought 
constantly  face  to  face  with  the  memorials  that  have 
been  erected  by  a  grateful  people  to  the  genius  of  the 
Iron  Chancellor.  Bismarck  richly  deserves  the  tribute 
that  is  paid  to  his  memory,  but  a  man  to  be  honored 
in  this  way  must  exert  a  tangible  and  an  obvious  in- 
fluence. 

And  yet,  in  a  broader  sense,  the  preeminence  of  Ger- 
many is  due  in  far  greater  measure  to  two  men  whose 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  29 

names  are  not  so  frequently  to  be  found  inscribed  upon 
towers  and  monuments.  In  the  very  midst  of  the  havoc 
and  devastation  wrought  by  the  Napoleon  wars,  —  at 
the  very  moment  when  the  German  people  seemed 
hopelessly  crushed  and  defeated,  —  an  intellect  more 
penetrating  than  that  of  Bismarck  grasped  the  logic 
of  the  situation.  With  the  inspiration  that  comes 
with  true  insight,  the  philosopher  Fichte  issued  his 
famous  Addresses  to  the  German  people.  With  clear- 
cut  argument  couched  in  white-hot  words,  he  drove 
home  the  great  principle  that  lies  at  the  basis  of  United 
Germany  and  upon  the  results  of  which  Bismarck  and 
Von  Moltke  and  the  first  Emperor  erected  the  splendid 
structure  that  to-day  conmiands  the  admiration  of  the 
world.  Fichte  told  the  German  people  that  their  only 
hope  lay  in  universal,  pubUc  education.  And  the  king- 
dom of  Prussia  —  impoverished,  bankrupt,  war-ridden, 
and  war-devastated  —  heard  the  plea.  A  great  scheme 
that  comprehended  such  an  education  was  already  at 
hand.  It  had  fallen  almost  stillborn  from  the  only 
kind  of  a  mind  that  could  have  produced  it,  —  a  mind 
that  was  sufifused  with  an  overwhelming  love  for  hu- 
manity and  incomparably  rich  with  the  practical  experi- 
ences of  a  primary  schoolmaster.  It  had  fallen  from  the 
mind  of  Pestalozzi,  the  Swiss  reformer,  who  thus  stands 
with  Fichte  as  one  of  the  vital  factors  in  the  develop- 
ment of  Germany's  educational  supremacy. 
The   people's   schools   of   Prussia,  imbued   with  the 


30  CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

enthusiasm  of  Fichte  and  Pestalozzi/  gave  to  Ger- 
many the  tremendous  advantage  that  enabled  it  so 
easily  to  overcome  its  hereditary  foe,  when,  two  genera- 
tions later,  the  Franco-Prussian  War  was  fought ;  for 
the  Volksschule  gave  to  Germany  something  that  no 
other  nation  of  that  time  possessed;  namely,  an  edu- 
cated proletariat,  an  intelligent  common  people.  Bis- 
marck knew  this  when  he  laid  his  cimning  plans  for  the 
imification  of  German  states  that  was  to  crown  the 
brilliant  series  of  victories  beginning  at  Sedan  and  end- 
ing within  the  walls  of  Paris.  William  of  Prussia  knew 
it  when,  in  the  royal  palace  at  Versailles,  he  accepted 
the  crown  that  made  him  the  fiirst  Emperor  of  United 
Germany,  Von  Moltke  knew  it  when,  at  the  capitula- 
tion of  Paris,  he  was  asked  to  whom  the  credit  of  the 
victory  was  due,  and  he  replied,  in  the  frank  simplicity 
of  the  true  soldier  and  the  true  hero,  "The  schoolmaster 
did  it." 

And  yet  Bismarck  and  Von  Moltke  and  the  Emperor 
are  the  heroes  of  Germany,  and  if  Fichte  and  Pestalozzi 
are  not  forgotten,  at  least  their  memories  are  not 
cherished  as  are  the  memories  of  the  more  tangible  and 
obvious  heroes.  Instinct  lies  deeply  embedded  in  hu- 
man nature  and  it  is  instinctive  to  think  in  the  con- 
crete.   And  so  I  repeat  that  we  cannot  expect  the 

'  It  should  be  added  that  the  movement  toward  universal  education 
in  Germany  owed  much  to  the  work  of  pre-Pestalozzian  reformers,  — 
especially  Francke  and  Basedow. 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  3 1 

general  public  to  share  in  the  respect  and  veneration 
which  you  and  I  feel  for  our  calling,  for  you  and  I  are 
technicians  in  education,  and  we  can  see  the  process 
as  a  comprehensive  whole.  But  our  fellow  men  and 
women  have  their  own  interests  and  their  own  depart- 
ments of  technical  knowledge  and  skill;  they  see  the 
schoolhouse  and  the  pupils'  desks  and  the  books  and 
other  various  material  symbols  of  oiu:  work,  —  they  see 
these  things  and  call  them  education ;  just  as  we  see  a 
freight  train  thundering  across  the  viaduct  or  a  steamer 
swinging  out  in  the  lake  and  call  these  things  com- 
merce. In  both  cases,  the  nontechnical  mind  asso- 
ciates the  word  with  something  concrete  and  tangible; 
in  both  cases,  the  technical  mind  associates  the  same 
word  with  an  abstract  process,  comprehending  a  move- 
ment of  vast  proportions. 

To  compress  such  a  movement  —  whether  it  be 
commerce  or  government  or  education  —  in  a  single 
conception  requires  a  multitude  of  experiences  involv- 
ing actual  adjustments  with  the  materials  involved; 
involving  constant  reflection  upon  hidden  meanings, 
painful  investigations  into  hidden  causes,  and  mastery 
of  a  vast  body  of  specialized  knowledge  which  it  takes 
years  of  study  to  digest  and  assimilate. 

It  is  not  every  stevedore  upon  the  docks,  nor  every 
stoker  upon  the  steamers,  nor  every  brakeman  upon 
the  railroads,  who  comprehends  what  commerce  really 
means.    It  is  not  every  banker's  clerk  who  knows  the 


32  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

meaning  of  business.  It  is  not  every  petty  holder  of 
public  office  who  knows  what  government  reaUy  means. 
But  this,  at  least,  is  true:  in  proportion  as  the  worker 
knows  the  meaning  of  the  work  that  he  does,  —  in  pro- 
portion as  he  sees  it  in  its  largest  relations  to  society 
and  to  life,  —  his  work  is  no  longer  the  drudgery  of 
routine  toil.  It  becomes  instead  an  intelligent  process 
directed  toward  a  definite  goal.  It  has  acquired  that 
touch  of  artistry  which,  so  far  as  human  testimony  goes, 
is  the  only  pure  and  uncontaminated  source  of  hiuiian 
happiness. 

And  the  chief  blessing  for  which  you  and  I  should 
be  thankful  to-day  is  that  this  larger  view  of  our  call- 
ing has  been  vouchsafed  to  us  as  it  has  been  vouch- 
safed no  former  generation  of  teachers.  Education  as 
the  conventional  prerogative  of  the  rich,  —  as  the 
garment  which  separated  the  higher  from  the  lower 
classes  of  society,  —  this  could  scarcely  be  looked  upon 
as  a  fascinating  and  upUfting  ideal  from  which  to  derive 
hope  and  inspiration  in  the  day's  work;  and  yet  this 
was  the  commonly  accepted  function  of  education  for 
thousands  of  years,  and  the  teachers  who  did  the  actual 
work  of  instruction  could  not  but  reflect  in  their  atti- 
tude and  bearing  the  servile  character  of  the  task  that 
they  performed.  Education  to  fit  the  child  to  earn  a 
better  living,  to  command  a  higher  wage,  —  this  myopic 
view  of  the  function  of  the  school  could  do  but  little 
to  make  the  work  of  teaching  anything  but  drudgery; 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  33 

and  yet  it  is  this  narrow  and  materialistic  view  that 
has  dominated  our  educational  system  to  within  a  com- 
paratively few  years. 

So  silently  and  yet  so  insistently  have  our  craft 
ideals  been  transformed  in  the  last  two  decades  that 
you  and  I  are  scarcely  aware  that  our  point  of  view 
has  been  changed  and  that  we  are  looking  upon  our 
work  from  a  much  higher  point  of  vantage  and  in  a 
light  entirely  new.  And  yet  this  is  the  change  that  has 
been  wrought.  That  education,  in  its  widest  meaning,  is 
the  sole  conservator  and  transmitter  of  civilization  to  suc- 
cessive generations  found  expression  as  far  back  as  Aris- 
totle and  Plato,  and  has  been  vaguely  voiced  at  intervals 
down  through  the  centuries;  but  its  complete  estabUsh- 
ment  came  only  as  an  indirect  issue  of  the  great  scientific 
discoveries  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  its  application 
to  the  problems  of  practical  Schoolcraft  and  its  dissemina- 
tion through  the  rank  and  file  of  teachers  awaited  the 
dawn  of  the  twentieth  century.  To-day  we  see  expres- 
sions and  indications  of  the  new  outlook  upon  every 
hand,  in  the  greatly  increased  professional  zeal  that 
animates  the  teacher's  calling ;  in  the  widespread  move- 
ment among  all  civilized  countries  to  raise  the  standards 
of  teachers,  to  eliminate  those  candidates  for  service 
who  have  not  subjected  themselves  to  the  discipline  of 
special  preparation ;  in  the  increased  endowments  and 
appropriations  for  schools  and  seminaries  that  prepare 
teachers;   and,  perhaps  most  strikingly  at  the  present 


34  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

moment,  in  that  concerted  movement  to  organize  into 
institutions  of  formal  education,  all  of  those  branches 
of  training  which  have,  for  years,  been  left  to  the  chance 
operation  of  economic  needs  working  through  the  crude 
and  unorganized  though  often  effective  apprentice  sys- 
tem. The  contemporary  fervor  for  industrial  educa- 
tion is  only  one  expression  of  this  new  view  that,  in  the 
last  analysis,  the  school  must  stand  sponsor  for  the 
conservation  and  transmission  of  every  valuable  item  of 
experience,  every  usable  fact  or  principle;  every  tiniest 
perfected  bit  of  technical  skill,  every  significant  ideal  or 
prejudice,  that  the  race  has  acquired  at  the  cost  of  so 
much  struggle  and  suffering  and  effort. 

I  repeat  that  this  new  vantage  point  from  which  to 
gain  a  comprehensive  view  of  our  calling  has  been  at- 
tained only  as  an  indirect  result  of  the  scientific  investiga- 
tions of  the  nineteenth  century.  We  are  wont  to  study 
the  history  of  education  from  the  work  and  writings  of  a 
few  great  reformers,  and  it  is  true  that  much  that  is  valu- 
able in  our  present  educational  system  can  be  understood 
and  appreciated  only  when  viewed  in  the  perspective 
of  such  sources.  Aristotle  and  Quintilian,  Abelard  and 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Sturm  and  Philip  Melanchthon,  Co- 
menius,  Pestalozzi,  Rousseau,  Herbart,  and  Froebel  still 
live  in  the  schools  of  to-day.  Their  genius  speaks  to  us 
through  the  organization  of  subject-matter,  through  the 
art  of  questioning,  through  the  developmental  methods  of 
teaching,  through  the  use  of  pictures,  through  objective 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  3$ 

instruction,  and  in  a  thousand  other  forms.  But  this  domi- 
nant ideal  of  education  to  which  I  have  referred  and  which 
is  so  rapidly  transforming  our  outlook  and  vitalizing  our 
organization  and  inspiring  us  to  new  efforts,  is  not  to  be 
drawn  from  these  sources.  The  new  histories  of  educa- 
tion must  account  for  this  new  ideal,  and  to  do  this  they 
must  turn  to  the  masters  in  science  who  made  the  middle 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  period  of  the  most  pro- 
found changes  that  the  history  of  human  thought  records.^ 
With  the  illuminating  principle  of  evolution  came  a  new 
and  generously  rich  conception  of  hmnan  growth  and 
development.  The  panorama  of  evolution  carried  man 
back  far  beyond  the  limits  of  recorded  hvrnian  history  and 
indicated  an  origin  as  lowly  as  the  succeeding  uplift  has 
been  subUme.  The  old  depressing  and  fatalistic  notion 
that  the  human  race  was  on  the  downward  path,  and 
that  the  march  of  civilization  must  sooner  or  later  end 
in  a  cul-de-sac  (a  view  which  found  frequent  expres- 
sion in  the  French  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century  and 
which  dominated  the  skepticism  of  the  dark  hours  preced- 
ing the  Revolution)  —  this  fatalistic  view  met  its  death- 
blow in  the  principle  of  evolution.  A  vista  of  hope  en- 
tirely undreamed  of  stretched  out  before  the  race.  If  the 
tremendous  leverage  of  the  untold  millenniums  of  brute 
and  savage  ancestry  could  be  overcome,  even  in  slight 

•  WhUe  the  years  from  1840  to  1870  mark  the  period  of  intellectual 
revolution,  it  should  not  be  inferred  that  the  education  of  this  period 
reflected  these  fundamental  changes  of  outlook.  On  the  contrary,  these 
years  were  in  general  marked  by  educational  stagnation. 


36  CRAFTSMANSHIP   Df   TEACHING 

measure,  by  a  few  short  centuries  of  intelligence  and  rea- 
son, what  might  not  happen  in  a  few  more  centuries  of 
constantly  increasing  hght?  In  short,  the  principle  of 
evolution  suppUed  the  perspective  that  was  necessary  to 
an  adequate  evaluation  of  human  progress. 

But  this  inspiriting  outlook  which  was  perhaps  the 
most  comprehensive  result  of  Darwin's  work  had  indirect 
consequences  that  were  vitally  significant  to  education. 
It  is  with  mental  and  not  with  physical  development  that 
education  is  primarily  concerned,  and  yet  mental  develop- 
ment is  now  known  to  depend  fundamentally  upon  phys- 
ical forces.  The  same  decade  that  witnessed  the  publica- 
tion of  the  Origin  of  Species  also  witnessed  the  birth  of 
another  great  book,  Uttle  known  except  to  the  specialist, 
and  yet  destined  to  achieve  immortality.  This  book  is  the 
Elements  of  Psychophysics,  the  work  of  the  German  sci- 
entist Fechner.  The  intimate  relation  between  mental  life 
and  physical  and  physiological  forces  was  here  first  clearly 
demonstrated,  and  the  way  was  open  for  a  science  of  psy- 
chology which  should  cast  aside  the  old  and  threadbare 
raiment  of  mystery  and  speculation  and  metaphysic, 
and  stand  forth  naked  and  unashamed. 

But  all  this  was  only  preparatory  to  the  epoch- 
making  discoveries  that  have  had  so  much  to  do  with  our 
present  attitude  toward  education.  The  Darwinian  hy- 
pothesis led  to  violent  controversy,  not  only  between  the 
opponents  and  supporters  of  the  theory,  but  also  among 
the   various   camps   of    the   evolutionists    themselves. 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  37 

Among  these  controversies  was  that  which  concerned 
itself  with  the  inheritance  of  acquired  characteristics, 
and  the  outcome  of  that  conflict  has  a  direct  signifi- 
cance to  present  educational  theory.  The  principle,  now 
almost  conclusively  estabUshed,^  that  the  character- 
istics acquired  by  an  organism  during  its  lifetime  are 
not  transmitted  by  physical  heredity  to  its  offspring, 
must  certainly  stand  as  the  basic  principle  of  education ; 
for  everything  that  we  identify  as  human  as  contrasted 
with  that  which  is  brutal  must  look  to  education  for  its 
preservation  and  support.  It  has  been  stated  by  compe- 
tent authorities  that,  during  the  past  ten  thousand  years, 
there  has  been  no  significant  change  in  man's  physical 
constitution.  This  simply  means  that  Nature  finished 
her  work  as  far  as  man  is  concerned  far  beyond  the  re- 
motest period  that  human  history  records ;  that,  for  all 
that  we  can  say  to-day,  there  must  have  existed  in  the 
very  distant  past  human  beings  who  were  just  as  well 
adapted  by  nature  to  the  lives  that  we  are  leading  as  we 
are  to-day  adapted ;  that  what  they  lacked  and  what  we 
possess  is  simply  a  mass  of  traditions,  of  habits,  of  ideals, 
and  prejudices  which  have  been  slowly  accumulated 
through  the  ages  and  which  are  passed  on  from  generation 
to  generation  by  imitation  and  instruction  and  training 
and  discipline ;  and  that  the  child  of  to-day,  left  to  his  own 
devices  and  operated  upon  in  no  way  by  the  products  of 

*  The  writer  here  accepts  the  conclusions  of  J.  A.  Thomson  (Heredity, 
New  York,  1908,  ch.  vii). 

45579 


38  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

civilization,  would  develop  into  a  savage  undistinguish- 
able  in  all  significant  qualities  from  other  savages. 

The  possibihties  that  follow  from  such  a  conception 
are  almost  overwhelming  even  at  first  glance,  and  yet 
the  theory  is  borne  out  by  adequate  experiments.  The 
transformation  of  the  Japanese  people  through  two  gener- 
ations of  education  in  Western  civilization  is  a  complete 
upsetting  of  the  old  theory  that  as  far  as  race  is  concerned, 
there  is  anything  significantly  important  in  blood,  and 
confirms  the  view  that  all  that  is  racially  significant 
depends  upon  the  influences  that  surround  the  yoimg  of 
the  race  during  the  formative  years.  The  complete 
assimilation  of  foreign  ingredients  into  our  own  na- 
tional stock  through  the  instrumentality  of  the  public 
school  is  another  demonstration  that  the  factors  which 
form  the  significant  characteristics  in  the  lower  animals 
possess  but  a  minimum  of  significance  to  man,  —  that 
color,  race,  stature,  and  even  brain  weight  and  the  shape 
of  the  cranium,  have  very  little  to  do  with  human  worth 
or  human  efficiency  save  in  extremely  abnormal  cases. 

And  so  we  have  at  last  a  fundamental  principle  with 
which  to  illumine  the  field  of  our  work  and  from  which  to 
derive  not  only  light  but  inspiration.  Unite  this  with 
John  Fiske's  penetrating  induction  that  the  possibilities 
of  progress  through  education  are  correlated  directly  with 
the  length  of  the  period  of  growth  or  immaturity,  —  that 
is,  that  the  races  having  the  longest  growth  before  matur- 
ity are  capable  of  the  highest  degree  of  civilization,  — 


OPTIMISM   IN  TEACHING  39 

and  we  have  a  pair  of  principles  the  influence  of  which  we 
see  reflected  all  about  us  in  the  great  activity  for  educa- 
tion and  especially  in  the  increased  sense  of  pride  and 
responsibility  and  respect  for  his  calling  that  is  animating 
the  modern  teacher. 

And  what  will  be  the  result  of  this  new  point  of  view  ? 
First  and  foremost,  an  increased  general  respect  for  the 
work.  Until  a  profession  repects  itself,  it  cannot  very 
well  ask  for  the  world's  respect,  and  until  it  can  respect 
itself  on  the  basis  of  scientific  principles  indubitably 
established,  its  respect  for  itself  will  be  httle  more  than 
the  irritating  self-esteem  of  the  goody-goody  order  which 
is  so  often  associated  with  our  craft. 

With  our  own  respect  for  our  calling,  based  upon  this 
incontrovertible  principle,  will  come,  sooner  or  later, 
increased  compensation  for  the  work  and  increased  pres- 
tige in  the  community.  I  repeat  that  these  things  can 
only  come  after  we  have  established  a  true  craft  spirit. 
If  we  are  ashamed  of  our  calling,  if  we  regret  openly  and 
publicly  that  we  are  not  lawyers  or  physicians  or  dentists 
or  bricklayers  or  farmers  or  anything  rather  than  teachers, 
the  public  will  have  little  respect  for  the  teacher's  calling. 
As  long  as  we  criticize  each  other  before  laymen  and 
make  light  of  each  other's  honest  efforts,  the  public 
will  question  our  professional  standing  on  the  ground  that 
we  have  no  organized  code  of  professional  ethics,  —  a 
prerequisite  for  any  profession. 

I  started  out  to  tell  you  something  that  we  ought  to  be 


40  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

thankful  for,  —  something  that  ought  to  counteract 
in  a  measure  the  inevitable  tendencies  toward  pes- 
simism and  discouragement.  The  hopeful  thing  about 
our  present  status  is  that  we  have  an  established 
principle  upon  which  to  work.  A  writer  in  a  recent 
periodical  stoutly  maintained  that  education  was  in 
the  position  just  now  that  medicine  was  in  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  statement  is  hardly  fair,  either  to 
medicine  or  to  education.  If  one  were  to  attempt  a 
parallel,  one  might  say  that  education  stands  to-day 
where  medicine  stood  about  the  middle  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  The  analogy  might  be  more  closely 
drawn  by  comparing  our  present  conception  of  education 
with  the  conception  of  medicine  just  prior  to  the  appli- 
cation of  the  experimental  method  to  a  solution  of  its 
problems.  Education  has  still  a  long  road  to  travel 
before  it  reaches  the  point  of  development  that  medicine 
has  to-day  attained.  It  has  still  to  develop  principles 
that  are  comparable  to  the  doctrine  of  lymph  therapy  or 
to  that  latest  triumph  of  investigation  in  the  field  of 
medicine, —  the  theory  of  opsonins, — which  almost  makes 
one  believe  that  in  a  few  years  violent  accident  and  old 
age  will  be  the  only  sources  of  death  in  the  human  race. 
Education,  we  admit,  has  a  long  road  to  travel  before 
it  reaches  so  advanced  a  point  of  development.  But 
there  is  no  immediate  cause  for  pessimism  or  de- 
spair. We  need  especially,  now  that  the  purpose  of 
education  is  adequately  defined,  an  adequate  doctrine 


OPTIMISM   IN   TEACHING  4I 

of  educational  values  and  a  rich  and  vital  infusion  of 
the  spirit  of  experimental  science.  For  efficiency  in  the 
work  of  instruction  and  training,  we  need  to  know  the 
influence  of  different  types  of  experience  in  controlling 
human  conduct,  —  we  need  to  know  just  what  degree  of 
efficiency  is  exerted  by  our  arithmetic  and  literature,  our 
geography  and  history,  our  drawing  and  manual  training, 
our  Latin  and  Greek,  our  ethics  and  psychology.  It  is 
the  lack  of  definite  ideas  and  criteria  in  these  fields 
that  constitutes  the  greatest  single  source  of  waste  in 
our  educational  system  to-day. 

And  yet  even  here  the  outlook  is  extremely  hopeful. 
The  new  movement  toward  industrial  education  is 
placing  greater  and  greater  emphasis  upon  those  sub- 
jects of  instruction  and  those  types  of  methods  whose 
efficiency  can  be  tested  and  determined  in  an  accurate 
fashion.  The  intimate  relation  between  the  classroom, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  machine  shop,  the  experi- 
mental farm,  the  hospital  ward  and  operating  room, 
and  the  practice  school,  on  the  other  hand,  indicates  a 
source  of  accurate  knowledge  with  regard  to  the  way 
in  which  our  teachings  really  affect  the  conduct  and 
adjustment  of  our  pupils  that  cannot  fail  within  a  short 
time  to  serve  as  the  basis  for  some  illuminating  principle 
of  educational  values.  This,  I  believe,  will  be  the  next 
great  step  in  the  development  of  our  profession. 

There  has  been  no  intention  in  what  I  have  said  to 
minimize  the  disadvantages  and  discouragements  under 


42  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

which  we  are  to-day  doing  our  work.  My  only  plea  is 
for  the  hopeful  and  optimistic  outlook  which,  I  main- 
tain, is  richly  justified  by  the  progress  that  has  already 
been  made  and  by  the  virile  character  of  the  forces  that 
are  operating  in  the  present  situation. 

On  the  whole,  I  can  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
encourage  young  men  to  enter  the  service  of  school- 
craft.  I  cannot  say  to  them  that  they  will  attain  to 
great  wealth,  but  I  can  safely  promise  them  that,  if 
they  give  to  the  work  of  preparation  the  same  atten- 
tion and  time  that  they  would  give  to  their  education 
and  training  for  medicine  or  law  or  engineering,  their 
services  will  be  in  large  demand  and  their  rewards  not 
to  be  sneered  at.  Their  incomes  will  not  enable  them 
to  compete  with  the  captains  of  industry,  but  they  will 
permit  as  full  an  enjoyment  of  the  comforts  of  life  as  it 
is  good  for  any  young  man  to  command.  But  the  am- 
bitious teacher  must  pay  the  price  to  reap  these  re- 
wards, —  the  price  of  time  and  energy  and  labor,  —  the 
price  that  he  would  have  to  pay  for  success  in  any  other 
human  calling.  What  I  cannot  promise  him  in  educa- 
tion is  the  opportunity  for  wide  popular  adulation,  but 
this,  after  all,  is  a  matter  of  taste.  Some  men  crave  it 
and  they  should  go  into  those  vocations  that  will  give 
it  to  them.  Others  are  better  satisfied  with  the  dis- 
criminating recognition  and  praise  of  their  own  fellow- 
craftsmen. 


Ill 


How   May  We   Promote   the    Efficiency   of   the 
Teaching  Force  ' 

I 

Efficiency  seems  to  be  a  word  to  conjure  with  in  these 
days.  Popular  speech  has  taken  it  in  its  present  conno- 
tation from  the  technical  vocabulary  of  engineering,  and 
the  term  has  brought  with  it  a  very  refreshing  sense  of 
accuracy  and  practicality.  It  suggests  blueprints  and 
T-squares  and  mathematical  formulae.  A  faint  and  rather 
pleasant  odor  of  lubricating  oil  and  cotton  waste  seems 
to  hover  about  it.  The  efficiency  of  a  steam  engine  or 
a  dynamo  is  a  definitely  determinable  and  measurable 
factor,  and  when  we  use  the  term  ''efficiency"  in  pop- 
ular speech  we  convey  through  the  word  somewhat  of 
this  quality  of  certainty  and  exactitude. 

An  efficient  man,  very  obviously,  is  a  man  who  "makes 
good,"  who  surmounts  obstacles,  overcomes  difficulties, 
and  "gets  results."  Rowan,  the  man  who  achieved  im- 
mortality on  account  of  a  certain  message  that  he  carried 
to  Garcia,  is  the  contemporary  standard  of  human  effi- 

*  A  paper  read  before  the  Normal  and  Training  Teachers'  Conference 
of  the  New  York  State  Teachers'  Association,  December  27,  1907. 

43 


44  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

dency.  He  was  given  a  task  to  do,  and  he  did  it.  He 
did  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  it  was  interesting,  or 
whether  it  was  easy,  or  whether  it  would  be  remunerative, 
or  whether  Garcia  was  a  pleasant  man  to  meet.  He 
simply  took  the  message  and  brought  back  the  answer. 
Here  we  have  efficiency  in  human  endeavor  reduced  to  its 
lowest  terms:  to  take  a  message  and  to  bring  back  an 
answer ;  to  do  the  work  that  is  laid  out  for  one  to  do  with- 
out shirking  or  "soldiering"  or  whining;  and  to  "make 
good,"  to  get  results. 

Now  if  we  are  to  improve  the  efficiency  of  the  teacher, 
the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  see  that  the  conditions  of  effi- 
ciency are  fulfilled  as  far  as  possible  at  the  outset.  In 
other  words,  efficiency  is  impossible  unless  one  is  set  a 
certain  task  to  accompHsh.  Rowan  was  told  to  carry  a 
message  to  Garcia.  He  was  to  carry  it  to  Garcia,  not  to 
Queen  Victoria  or  Li  Hung  Chang  or  J.  Pierpont  Mor- 
gan, or  any  one  else  whom  he  may  have  felt  inclined 
to  choose  as  its  recipient.  And  that  is  just  where 
Rowan  had  a  decided  advantage  over  many  teachers 
who  have  every  ambition  to  be  just  as  efficient  as  he  was. 
To  expect  a  young  teacher  not  only  to  get  results,  but 
also  to  determine  the  results  that  should  be  obtained, 
multiplies  his  chances  of  failure,  not  by  two,  as  one  might 
assume  at  first  thought,  but  almost  by  infinity. 

Let  me  give  an  example  of  what  I  mean.  A  young  man 
graduated  from  college  during  the  hard  times  of  the 
middle  nineties.    It  was  imperative  that  he  secure  some 


EFFICIENCY  OF   TEACHERS  45 

sort  of  a  remunerative  employment,  but  places  were  very 
scarce  and  he  had  to  seek  a  long  time  before  he  found  any- 
thing to  which  he  could  turn  his  hand.  The  position  that 
he  finally  secured  was  that  of  teacher  in  an  ungraded 
school  in  a  remote  settlement.  School-teaching  was  far 
from  his  thoughts  and  still  farther  from  his  ambitions, 
but  forty  dollars  a  month  looked  too  good  to  be  true,  espe- 
cially as  he  had  come  to  the  point  where  his  allowance 
of  food  consisted  of  one  plate  of  soup  each  day,  with  the 
small  supply  of  crackers  that  went  with  it.  He  accepted 
the  position  most  gratefully. 

He  taught  this  school  for  two  years.  He  had  no  super- 
vision. He  read  various  books  on  the  science  and  art  of 
teaching  and  upon  a  certain  subject  that  went  by  the 
name  of  psychology,  but  he  could  see  no  connection  be- 
tween what  these  books  told  him  and  the  tasks  that  he 
had  to  face.  Finally  he  bought  a  book  that  was  adver- 
tised as  indispensable  to  young  teachers.  The  first  words 
of  the  opening  paragraph  were  these:  "Teacher,  if  you 
know  it  all,  don't  read  this  book."  The  young  man 
threw  the  volume  in  the  fire.  He  had  no  desire  to  profit 
by  the  teaching  of  an  author  who  began  his  instruction 
with  an  insult.  From  that  time  until  he  left  the  school, 
he  never  opened  a  book  on  educational  theory. 

His  first  year  passed  off  with  what  appeared  to  be  the 
most  encouraging  success.  He  talked  to  his  pupils  on 
science  and  literature  and  history.  They  were  very  good 
children,  and  they  Hstened  attentively.    When  he  tired  of 


46  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

talking,  he  set  the  pupils  to  writing  in  their  copy  books, 
while  he  thought  of  more  things  to  talk  about.  He 
covered  a  great  deal  of  ground  that  first  year.  Scarcely 
a  field  of  human  knowledge  was  left  untouched.  His  pu- 
pils were  duly  informed  about  the  plants  and  rocks  and 
trees,  about  the  planets  and  constellations,  about  atoms 
and  molecules  and  the  laws  of  motion,  about  digestion  and 
respiration  and  the  wonders  of  the  nervous  system,  about 
Shakespeare  and  Dickens  and  George  EUot.  And  his 
pupils  were  very  much  interested  in  it  all.  Their  faces 
had  that  glow  of  interest,  that  look  of  wonderment  and 
absorption,  that  you  get  sometimes  when  you  tell  a  little 
four-year-old  the  story  of  the  three  bears.  He  never 
had  any  troubles  of  discipline,  because  he  never  asked 
his  pupils  to  do  anything  that  they  did  not  wish  to  do. 
There  were  six  pupils  in  his  "  chart  class."  They  were 
anxious  to  learn  to  read,  and  three  of  them  did  learn. 
Their  mothers  taught  them  at  home.  The  other  three 
were  still  learning  at  the  end  of  the  second  year.  He 
concluded  that  they  had  been  "born  short,"  but  he  liked 
them  and  they  liked  him.  He  did  not  teach  his  pupils 
spelling  or  writing.  If  they  learned  these  things  they 
learned  them  without  his  aid,  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that 
they  did  not  learn  them  in  any  significant  measure.  He 
did  not  like  arithmetic,  and  so  he  just  touched  on  it  now 
and  then  for  the  sake  of  appearances. 

This  teacher  was  elected  for  the  following  year  at  a 
handsome  increase  of  salary.    He  took  this  to  mean  a 


EFFICIENCY   OF  TEACHERS  47 

hearty  indorsement  of  his  methods;  consequently  he 
followed  the  same  general  plan  the  next  year.  He  had 
told  his  pupils  about  everything  that  he  knew,  so  he 
started  over  again,  much  to  their  delight.  He  left  at  the 
close  of  the  year,  amidst  general  lamentation.  School- 
teaching  was  a  deUghtful  occupation,  but  he  had  mas- 
tered the  art,  and  now  he  wished  to  attack  something 
that  was  really  difficult.  He  would  study  law.  It  is  no 
part  of  the  story  that  he  did  not.  Neither  is  it  part  of 
the  story  that  his  successor  had  a  very  hard  time  getting 
that  school  straightened  out;  in  fact,  I  believe  it  re- 
quired three  or  four  successive  successors  to  make  even 
an  impression. 

Now  that  man's  work  was  a  failure,  and  the  saddest 
kind  of  a  failure,  for  he  did  not  realize  that  he  had  failed 
until  years  afterward.  He  failed,  not  because  he  lacked 
ambition  and  enthusiasm;  he  had  a  large  measure  of 
both  these  indispensable  quahties.  He  failed,  not  be- 
cause he  lacked  education  and  a  certain  measure  of  what 
the  world  calls  culture ;  from  the  standpoint  of  education, 
he  was  better  qualified  than  most  teachers  in  schools 
of  that  type.  He  failed,  not  because  he  lacked  social 
spirit  and  the  ability  to  cooi>erate  with  the  church  and  the 
home ;  he  mingled  with  the  other  members  of  the  com- 
munity, lived  their  life  and  thought  their  thoughts  and 
enjoyed  their  social  diversions.  The  community  liked 
him  and  respected  him.  His  pupils  liked  him  and  re- 
spected him;  and  yet  what  he  fears  most  of  all  to-day 


48  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

is  that  he  may  come  suddenly  face  to  face  with  one  of 
those  pupils  and  be  forced  to  listen  to  a  first-hand  ac- 
count of  his  sins  of  omission. 

This  man  failed  simply  because  he  did  not  do  what  the 
elementary  teacher  must  do  if  he  is  to  be  efficient  as  an 
elementary  teacher.  He  did  not  train  his  pupils  in  the 
habits  that  are  essential  to  one  who  is  to  live  the  social 
life.  He  gave  them  a  miscellaneous  lot  of  interesting 
information  which  held  their  attention  while  it  lasted, 
but  which  was  never  mastered  in  any  real  sense  of  the 
term,  and  which  could  have  but  the  most  superficial 
influence  upon  their  future  conduct.  But,  worst  of  all, 
he  permitted  bad  and  inadequate  habits  to  be  developed 
at  the  most  critical  and  plastic  period  of  life.  His  pupils 
had  followed  the  lines  of  least  effort,  just  as  he  had  fol- 
lowed the  lines  of  least  effort.  The  result  was  a  well- 
established  prejudice  against  everything  that  was  not 
superficially  attractive  and  intrinsically  interesting. 

Now  this  man's  teaching  fell  short  simply  because  he 
did  not  know  what  results  he  ought  to  obtain.  He  had 
been  given  a  message  to  deliver,  but  he  did  not  know  to 
whom  he  should  deliver  it.  Consequently  he  brought  the 
answer,  not  from  Garcia,  but  from  a  host  of  other  per- 
sonages with  whom  he  was  better  acquainted,  whose  lan- 
guage he  could  speak  and  understand,  and  from  whom  he 
was  certain  of  a  warm  welcome.  In  other  words,  having 
no  definite  results  for  which  he  would  be  held  responsible, 
he  did  the  kind  of  teaching  that  he  liked  to  do.    That 


EFFICIENCY    OF    TEACHERS  49 

might,  under  certain  conditions,  have  been  the  best  kind 
of  teaching  for  his  pupils.  But  these  conditions  did  not 
happen  to  operate  at  that  time.  The  answer  that  he 
brought  did  not  happen  to  be  the  answer  that  was  needed. 
That  it  pleased  his  employers  does  not  in  the  least  mitigate 
the  failure.  That  a  teacher  pleases  the  community  in 
which  he  works  is  not  always  evidence  of  his  success. 
It  is  dangerous  to  make  a  statement  like  this,  for  some  are 
sure  to  jump  to  the  opposite  conclusion  and  assume  that 
one  who  is  unpopular  in  the  community  is  the  most  suc- 
cessful. Needless  to  say,  the  reasoning  is  fallacious. 
The  matter  of  popularity  is  a  secondary  criterion,  not  a 
primary  criterion  of  the  efficiency  of  teaching.  One  may 
be  successful  and  popular  or  successful  and  impopular; 
imsuccessful  and  popular  or  unsuccessful  and  unpopular. 
The  question  of  popularity  is  beside  the  question  of  effi- 
ciency, although  it  may  enter  into  specific  cases  as  a  factor. 

II 

And  so  the  first  step  to  take  in  getting  more  efficient 
work  from  young  teachers,  and  especially  from  inexperi- 
enced and  untrained  teachers  fresh  from  the  high  school 
or  the  college,  is  to  make  sure  that  they  know  what  is 
expected  of  them.  Now  this  looks  to  be  a  very  simple 
precaution  that  no  one  would  be  unwise  enough  to  omit. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  great  many  superintendents  and 
principals  are  not  explicit  and  definite  about  the  results 
that  they  desire.    Very  frequently  all  that  is  asked  of  a 


50  CRATTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

teacher  is  that  he  or  she  keep  things  running  smoothly, 
keep  pupils  and  parents  good-natured.  Let  me  assert 
again  that  this  ought  to  be  done,  but  that  it  is  no  meas- 
ure of  a  teacher's  efficiency,  simply  because  it  can  be 
done  and  often  is  done  by  means  that  defeat  the  purpose 
of  the  school.  As  a  yoimg  principal  in  a  city  system,  I 
learned  some  vital  lessons  in  supervision  from  a  very 
skillful  teacher.  She  would  come  to  me  week  after  week 
with  this  statement :  "Tell  me  what  you  want  done,  and 
I  will  do  it."  It  took  me  some  time  to  reaUze  that  that 
was  just  what  I  was  being  paid  to  do,  —  telling  teachers 
what  should  be  accomphshed  and  then  seeing  that  they 
accomplished  the  task  that  was  set.  When  I  finally 
awoke  to  my  duties,  I  found  myself  utterly  at  a  loss  to 
make  prescriptions.  I  then  learned  that  there  was  a 
certain  document  known  as  the  course  of  study,  which 
mapped  out  the  general  line  of  work  and  indicated  the 
minimal  requirements.  I  had  seen  this  course  of  study, 
but  its  function  had  never  impressed  itself  upon  me.  I 
had  thought  that  it  was  one  of  those  documents  that 
officials  pubhsh  as  a  matter  of  form  but  which  no  one  is 
ever  expected  to  read.  But  I  soon  discovered  that  a 
principal  had  something  to  do  besides  passing  from  room 
to  room,  looking  wisely  at  the  work  going  on,  and  pat- 
ting little  boys  and  girls  on  the  head. 

Now  a  definite  course  of  study  is  very  hard  to  con- 
struct, —  a  course  that  will  tell  explicitly  what  the  pupils 
of  each  grade  should  acquire  each  term  or  half-term  in  the 


EFFICIENCY   OF   TEACHERS  5I 

way  of  habits,  knowledge,  ideals,  attitudes,  and  preju- 
dices. But  such  a  course  of  study  is  the  first  requisite  to 
efficiency  in  teaching.  The  system  that  goes  by  hit  or 
miss,  letting  each  teacher  work  out  his  own  salvation  in 
any  way  that  he  may  see  fit,  is  just  an  aggregation  of 
such  schools  as  that  which  I  have  described. 

It  is  true  that  reformers  have  very  strenuously  criti- 
cized the  policy  of  restricting  teachers  to  a  definite  course 
of  study.  They  have  maintained  that  it  curtails  indi- 
vidual initiative  and  crushes  enthusiasm.  It  does  this  in 
a  certain  measure.  Every  prescription  is  in  a  sense  a 
restriction.  The  fact  that  the  steamship  captain  must 
head  his  ship  for  Liverpool  instead  of  wherever  he  may 
choose  to  go  is  a  restriction,  and  the  captain's  individu- 
ality is  doubtless  crushed  and  his  initiative  limited.    But 

i 

this  result  seems  to  be  inevitable  and  he  generally 
manages  to  survive  the  blow.  The  course  of  study 
must  be  to  the  teacher  what  the  sailing  orders  are  to 
the  captain  of  the  ship,  what  the  stated  course  is  to 
the  wheelsman  and  the  officer  on  the  bridge,  what  the 
time-table  is  to  the  locomotive  engineer,  what  Garcia  and 
the  message  and  the  answer  were  to  Rowan.  One  may 
decry  organization  and  prescription  in  our  educational 
system.  One  may  say  that  these  things  tend  inevitably 
toward  mechanism  and  formalism  and  the  stultifying  of 
initiative.  But  the  fact  remains  that,  whenever  pre- 
scription is  abandoned,  efficiency  in  general  is  at  an  end. 
And  so  I  maintain  that  every  teacher  has  a  right  to 


52  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

know  what  he  is  to  be  held  responsible  for,  what  is  ex- 
pected of  him,  and  that  this  information  be  just  as  definite 
and  unequivocal  as  it  can  be  made.  It  is  under  the  stress 
of  definite  responsibility  that  growth  is  most  rapid  and 
certain.  The  more  uncertain  and  intangible  the  end  to 
be  gained,  the  less  keenly  will  one  feel  the  responsibiUty 
for  gaining  that  end.  Unhappily  we  cannot  say  to  a 
teacher :  "Here  is  a  message.  Take  it  to  Garcia.  Bring 
the  answer."  But  we  may  make  our  work  far  more  defi- 
nite and  tangible  than  it  is  now.  The  courses  of  study 
are  becoming  more  and  more  explicit  each  year.  Vague 
and  general  prescriptions  are  giving  place  to  definite  and 
specific  prescriptions.  The  teachers  know  what  they  are 
expected  to  do,  and  knowing  this,  they  have  some  meas- 
ure for  testing  the  eflSciency  of  their  own  efforts. 

in 

But  to  make  more  definite  requirements  is,  after  all, 
only  the  first  step  in  improving  efficiency.  It  is  not  suffi- 
cient that  one  know  what  results  are  wanted ;  one  must 
also  know  how  these  results  may  be  obtained.  Improve- 
ment in  method  means  improvement  in  efficiency,  and 
a  crying  need  in  education  to-day  is  a  scientific  investiga- 
tion of  methods  of  teaching.  Teachers  should  be  made 
acquainted  with  the  methods  that  are  most  economical 
and  efficient.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  whatever  is  done  in 
that  direction  at  the  present  time  must  be  almost  entirely 
confined  to  suggestions  and  hints. 


EFFICIENCY   OF    TEACHERS  53 

Our  discussions  of  methods  of  teaching  may  be  divided 
into  three  classes :  (i)  Dogmatic  assertions  that  such  and 
such  a  method  is  right  and  that  all  others  are  wrong  — 
assertions  based  entirely  upon  a  priori  reasoning.  For 
example,  the  assertion  that  children  must  never  be  per- 
mitted to  learn  their  lessons  "  by  heart"  is  based  upon 
the  general  principle  that  words  are  only  symbols  of  ideas 
and  that,  if  one  has  ideas,  one  can  find  words  of  his  own  in 
which  to  formulate  them.  (2)  A  second  class  of  discus- 
sions of  method  comprises  descriptions  of  devices  that 
have  proved  successful  in  certain  instances  and  with  cer- 
tain teachers.  (3)  Of  a  third  class  of  discussions  there  are 
very  few  representative  examples.  I  refer  to  methods 
that  have  been  estabUshed  on  the  basis  of  experiments  in 
which  irrelevant  factors  have  been  eliminated.  In  fact, 
I  know  of  no  clearly  defined  report  or  discussion  of  this 
sort.  An  approach  to  a  scientific  solution  of  a  definite 
problem  of  method  is  to  be  found  in  Browne's  mono- 
graph, The  Psychology  of  Simple  Arithmetical  Processes. 
Another  example  is  represented  by  the  experiments  of 
Miss  Steflfens,  Marx  Lobsien,  and  others,  regarding  the 
best  methods  of  memorizing,  and  proving  beyond  much 
doubt  that  the  complete  repetition  is  more  economical 
than  the  partial  repetition.  But  these  conclusions  have, 
of  course,  only  a  limited  field  of  application  to  prac- 
tical teaching.  We  stand  in  great  need  of  a  definite 
experimental  investigation  of  the  detailed  problems  of 
teaching  upon  which  there  is  wide  divergence  of  opinion. 


54  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

A  very  good  illustration  is  the  controversy  between  the 
how  and  the  why  in  primary  arithmetic.  In  this  case, 
there  is  a  vast  amount  of  "opinion,"  but  there  are  no 
clearly  defined  conclusions  drawn  from  accurate  tests. 
It  would  seem  possible  to  do  work  of  this  sort  concerning 
the  details  of  method  in  the  teaching  of  arithmetic, 
spelling,  grammar,  penmanship,  and  geography. 

IV 

Lacking  this  accurate  type  of  data  regarding  methods, 
the  next  recourse  is  to  the  actual  teaching  of  those 
teachers  who  are  recognized  as  efficient.  Wherever  such 
a  teacher  may  be  found,  his  or  her  work  is  well  worth  the 
most  careful  sort  of  study.  Success,  of  course,  may  be 
due  to  other  factors  than  the  methods  employed,  — to 
personahty,  for  example.  But,  in  every  case  of  recog- 
nized efficiency  in  teaching  that  I  have  observed,  I  have 
foimd  that  the  methods  employed  have,  in  the  main,  been 
productive  of  good  results  when  used  by  others.  The 
experienced  teacher  comes,  through  a  process  of  trial 
and  error,  to  select,  perhaps  unconsciously,  the  methods 
that  work  best.  Sometimes  these  are  not  always  to  be 
identified  with  the  methods  that  theoretical  pedagogy 
had  worked  out  from  a  priori  bases.  For  example,  the 
type  of  lesson  which  I  call  the  "deductive  development" 
lesson  ^  is  one  that  is  not  included  in  the  older  discus- 
sions of  method ;  yet  it  accurately  describes  one  of  the 
'  See  Educative  Process,  New  York,  1910,  Chapter  XX. 


EFFICIENCY    OF  TEACHERS  55 

methods  employed  by  a  very  successful  teacher  whose 
work  I  observed. 

One  way,  then,  to  improve  the  efficiency  of  young 
teachers,  in  so  far  as  improvement  in  methods  leads  to 
improved  efficiency,  is  to  encourage  the  observation  of  ex- 
pert teaching.  The  plan  of  giving  teachers  visiting  days 
often  brings  excellent  results,  especially  if  the  teacher 
looks  upon  the  privilege  in  the  proper  Ught.  The  hyper- 
critical spirit  is  fatal  to  growth  under  any  condition. 
Whenever  a  teacher  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  or 
she  has  nothing  to  learn  from  studying  the  work  of  others, 
anabolism  has  ceased  and  katabolism  has  set  in.  The 
self-sufficiency  of  our  craft  is  one  of  its  weakest  character- 
istics. It  is  the  factor  that  more  than  any  other  discounts 
it  in  the  minds  of  laymen.  Fortunately  it  is  less  fre- 
quently a  professional  characteristic  than  in  former 
years,  but  it  still  persists  in  some  quarters.  I  recently 
met  a  "  pedagogue  "  who  impressed  me  as  the  most  "know- 
ing" individual  that  it  had  ever  been  my  privilege  to 
become  acquainted  with.  An  enthusiastic  friend  of  his, 
in  dilating  upon  this  man's  virtues,  used  these  words: 
"When  you  propose  a  subject  of  conversation  in  whatever 
field  you  may  choose,  you  will  find  that  he  has  mastered 
it  to  bed  rock.  He  will  go  over  it  once  and  you  think  that 
he  is  wise.  He  starts  at  the  beginning  and  goes  over  it 
again,  and  you  realize  that  he  is  deep.  Once  more  he 
traverses  the  same  ground,  but  he  is  so  far  down  now  that 
you  cannot  follow  him,  and  then  you  are  aware  that  he  is 


56  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

profound."  That  sort  of  profundity  is  still  not  rare  in  the 
field  of  general  education.  The  person  who  has  all  pos- 
sible knowledge  pigeonholed  and  classified  is  still  in  our 
midst.  The  pedant  still  does  the  cause  of  education  in- 
calculable injury. 

Of  the  use  to  which  reading  circles  may  be  put  in  im- 
proving the  efficiency  of  teaching,  it  is  necessary  to  say 
but  little.  Such  organizations,  under  wise  leadership, 
may  doubtless  be  made  to  serve  a  good  purpose  in  pro- 
moting professional  enthusiasm.  The  difficulty  with 
using  them  to  promote  immediate  and  direct  efficiency 
lies  in  the  paucity  of  the  literature  that  is  at  our  disposal. 
Most  of  our  present-day  works  upon  education  are  very 
general  in  their  nature.  They  are  not  without  their 
value,  but  this  value  is  general  and  indirect  rather  than 
immediate  and  specific.  A  book  like  Miss  Winterburn's 
Methods  of  Teaching,  or  Chubb's  Teaching  of  English  ^  is 
especially  valuable  for  young  teachers  who  are  looking 
for  first-hand  helps.  But  books  like  this  are  all  too  rare 
in  our  literature. 

On  the  whole,  I  think  that  the  improvement  of  teachers 
in  the  matter  of  methods  is  the  most  imsatisfactory  part 
of  our  problem.^    All  that  one  can  say  is  that  the  work  of 

*  Rowe's  HMt  Formation  (New  York,  1909),  Briggs  and  Coffman's 
Reading  in  Public  Schools  (Chicago,  1908),  Foght's  The  American  Rural 
School,  Adams's  Exposition  and  Illustration  in  Class  Teaching  (New 
York,  1 910),  and  Perry's  Problems  of  Elementary  Education  (New  York, 
1910)  should  certainly  be  added  to  this  list. 

*  "  It  seems  to  me  one  of  the  most  pressing  problems  in  pedagogy  to- 
day is  that  of  method.  ...    It  is  the  subject  in  which  teachers  of  peda- 


EFFICIENCY  OF   TEACHERS  $7 

the  best  teachers  should  be  observed  carefully  and  faith- 
fully, that  the  methods  upon  which  there  is  little  or  no 
dispute  should  be  given  and  accepted  as  standard,  but 
that  one  should  be  very  careful  about  giving  young 
teachers  an  idea  that  there  is  any  single  form  under 
which  all  teaching  can  be  subsumed.  I  know  of  no  term 
that  is  more  thoroughly  a  misnomer  in  our  technical 
vocabulary  than  the  term  "general  method."  I  teach  a 
subject  that  often  goes  by  that  name,  but  I  always  take 
care  to  explain  that  the  name  does  not  mean,  in  my  class, 
what  the  words  seem  to  signify.  There  are  certain  broad 
and  general  principles  which  describe  very  crudely  and 
roughly  and  inadequately  certain  phases  of  certain  pro- 
cesses that  mind  undergoes  in  organizing  experience  — 
perception,  apperception,  conception,  induction,  deduc- 
tion, inference,  generalization,  and  the  like.  But  these 
terms  have  only  a  vague  and  general  connotation;  or, 
if  their  connotation  is  specific  and  definite,  it  has  been 
made  so  by  an  artificial  process  of  definition  in  which 
counsel  is  darkened  by  words  without  meaning.  The 
only  full-fledged  law  that  I  know  of  in  the  educative 
process  is  the  law  of  habit  building  —  (i)  focalization, 
(2)  attentive  repetition  at  intervals  of  increasing  length, 

gogy  in  G)llege3  and  Universities  are  weakest  to-day.  Of  what  practical 
value  is  all  our  study  of  educational  psychology  or  the  history  of  education, 
our  child  study,  our  exp)erimental  pedagogy,  if  it  does  not  finally  result  in 
the  devising  of  better  methods  of  teaching,  and  make  the  teacher  more 
skillful  and  efifective  in  his  work."  —  T.  M.  Balliet  :  "Undergraduate 
Instruction  in  Pedagogy,"  Pedagogical  Seminary,  vol.  xvii,  1910,  p.  67. 


58  CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

(3)  permitting  no  exception  —  and  I  am  often  told  that 
this  "  law  "  is  fallacious.  It  has  differed  from  some  other 
so-called  laws,  however,  in  this  respect :  it  always  works. 
Whenever  a  complex  habit  is  adduced  that  has  not  been 
formed  through  the  operation  of  this  law,  I  am  willing 
to  give  it  up. 

V 
A  third  general  method  of  improving  the  efficiency  of 
teaching  is  to  build  up  the  notion  of  responsibility  for 
results.  The  teacher  must  not  only  take  the  message 
and  deliver  it  to  Garcia,  or  to  some  other  individual  as 
definite  and  tangible,  but  he  must  also  bring  the  answer. 
So  far  as  I  know  there  is  no  other  way  to  insure  a  maxi- 
miun  of  efficiency  than  to  demand  certain  results  and  to 
hold  the  individual  responsible  for  gaining  these  results. 
The  present  standards  of  the  teaching  craft  are  less  rigor- 
ous than  they  should  be  in  this  respect.  We  need  a  craft 
spirit  that  will  judge  every  man  impartially  by  his  work, 
not  by  secondary  criteria.  You  remember  Finlayson  in 
Kipling's  Bridge  Builders,  and  the  agony  with  which  he 
watched  the  waters  of  the  Ganges  tearing  away  at  the 
caissons  of  his  new  bridge.  A  vital  question  of  Finlay- 
son's  life  was  to  be  answered  by  the  success  or  failure  of 
those  caissons  to  resist  the  flood.  If  they  should  yield,  it 
meant  not  only  the  wreck  of  the  bridge,  but  the  wreck  of 
his  career;  for,  as  KipUng  says,  "Government  might 
listen,  perhaps,  but  his  own  kind  would  judge  him  by  his 
bridge  as  that  stood  or  fell." 


EFFICIENCY   OF   TEACHERS  59 

President  Hall  has  said  that  one  of  the  last  sentiments 
to  be  developed  in  human  nature  is  "the  sense  of  respon- 
sibility, which  is  one  of  the  highest  and  most  complex 
psychic  qualities."  How  to  develop  this  sentiment  of 
responsibility  is  one  of  the  most  pressing  problems  of 
education.  And  the  problem  is  especially  pressing  in 
those  departments  of  education  that  train  for  social 
service.  To  engender  in  the  young  teacher  an  effective 
prejudice  against  scamped  work,  against  the  making  of 
excuses,  against  the  seductive  allurements  of  ease  and 
comfort  and  the  hues  of  least  resistance  is  one  of  the  most 
important  duties  that  is  laid  upon  the  normal  school,  the 
training  school,  and  the  teachers'  college.  To  do  well  the 
work  that  has  been  set  for  him  to  do  should  be  the  highest 
ambition  of  every  worker,  the  ambition  to  which  all  other 
ambitions  and  desires  are  secondary  and  subordinate. 
Pride  in  the  mastery  of  the  technique  of  one's  calling  is 
the  most  wholesome  and  helpful  sort  of  pride  that  a  man 
can  indulge  in.  The  joy  of  doing  each  day's  work  in  the 
best  possible  manner  is  the  keenest  joy  of  life.  But  this 
pride  and  this  joy  do  not  come  at  the  outset.  Like  all 
other  good  things  of  life,  they  come  only  as  the  result  of 
effort  and  struggle  and  strenuous  self-discipline  and 
dogged  perseverance.  The  emotional  coloring  which 
gives  these  things  their  subjective  worth  is  a  matter  very 
largely  of  contrast.  Success  must  stand  out  against  a 
background  of  struggle,  or  the  chief  virtue  of  success 
—  the   consciousness   of   conquest  —  will    be   entirely 


6o  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

missed.  That  sort  of  success  means  strength;  for 
strength  of  mind  is  nothing  more  than  the  abihty  to 
**  hew  to  the  line,"  to  follow  a  given  course  of  effort  to 
a  successful  conclusion,  no  matter  how  long  and  how 
tedious  be  the  road  that  one  must  travel,  no  matter 
how  disagreeable  are  the  tasks  involved,  no  matter  how 
tempting  are  the  insidious  siren  songs  of  momentary 
fancy. 

What  teachers  need  —  what  all  workers  need  —  is  to 
be  inspired  with  those  ideals  and  prejudices  that  will  en- 
able them  to  work  steadfastly  and  unremittingly  toward 
the  attainment  of  a  stated  end.  What  inspired  Rowan 
with  those  ideals  of  efficiency  that  enabled  him  to  carry 
his  message  and  bring  back  the  answer,  I  do  not  know, 
but  if  he  was  a  soldier,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  hazard  an 
opinion.  Our  regular  army  stands  as  the  clearest  type  of 
efficient  service  which  is  available  for  our  study  and  emula- 
tion. The  work  of  Colonel  Goethals  on  the  Panama 
Canal  bids  fair  to  be  the  finest  fruit  of  the  training  that  we 
give  to  the  officers  of  our  army.  If  we  wish  to  learn  the 
fundamental  virtues  of  that  training,  it  is  not  sufficient 
to  study  the  curriculum  of  the  Military  Academy. 
Technical  knowledge  and  skill  are  essential  to  such  re- 
sults, but  they  are  not  the  prime  essentials.  If  you  wish 
to  know  what  the  prime  essentials  are,  let  me  refer  you  to 
a  series  of  papers,  entitled  The  Spirit  of  Old  West  Point, 
which  ran  through  a  recent  volume  of  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  and  which  has  since  been  published  in  book 


EFFICIENCY    OF    TEACHERS  6l 

form.  They  constitute,  to  my  mind,  one  of  the  most 
important  educational  documents  of  the  present  decade. 
The  army  service  is  efficient  because  it  is  inspired  with 
efifective  ideals  of  service,  —  ideals  in  which  every  other 
desire  and  ambition  is  totally  and  completely  subordi- 
nated to  the  ideal  of  duty.  To  those  who  maintain  that 
close  organization  and  definite  prescription  kill  initiative 
and  curtail  efl&ciency,  the  record  of  West  Point  and  the 
army  service  should  be  a  silencing  argument. 

And  yet  education  is  more  important  than  war ;  more 
important,  even,  than  the  building  of  the  Panama  Canal. 
We  believe,  and  rightly,  that  no  training  is  too  good  for  our 
military  and  naval  ofiicers ;  that  no  discipline  which  will 
produce  the  appropriate  habits  and  ideals  and  prejudices 
is  too  strenuous ;  that  no  individual  sacrifice  of  comfort 
or  ease  is  too  costly.  Equal  or  even  commensurable 
efficiency  in  education  can  come  only  through  a  like  pro- 
cess. From  the  times  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  to  the 
present  day,  one  vital  truth  has  been  revealed  in  every 
forward  movement ;  the  homely  truth  that  you  cannot 
make  bricks  without  straw;  you  cannot  win  success 
without  effort;  you  cannot  attain  efficiency  without 
undergoing  the  processes  of  discipline;  and  discipline 
means  only  this:  doing  things  that  you  do  not  want 
to  do,  for  the  sake  of  reaching  some  end  that  ought  to 
be  attained. 

The  normal  schools  and  the  training  schools  and  the 
teachers'  colleges  must  be  the  nurseries  of  craft  ideals 


62  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

and  standards.  The  instruction  that  they  offer  must  be 
upon  a  plane  that  will  command  respect.  The  intoler- 
able pedantry  and  the  hypocritical  goody-goodyism  must 
be  banished  forever.  The  crass  sentimentalism  by  which 
we  attempt  to  cover  our  paucity  of  craft  ideals  must  also 
be  eliminated.  Those  who  are  most  strongly  imbued 
with  ideals  are  not  those  who  cheapen  the  value  of 
ideals  by  constant  verbal  reiteration.  Ideals  do  not  often 
come  through  explicitly  imparted  precepts.  They  come 
through  more  impalpable  and  hidden  channels,  —  now 
through  stately  buildings  with  vine-covered  towers  from 
which  the  past  speaks  in  the  silence  of  great  halls  and 
cloistered  retreats;  now  through  the  unwritten  and 
scarcely  spoken  traditions  that  are  expressed  in  the  very 
bearing  and  attitude  of  those  to  whom  youth  looks  for 
inspiration  and  guidance ;  now  through  a  dominant  and 
powerful  personaUty,  sometimes  rough  and  crude,  some- 
times warm-hearted  and  lovable,  but  always  sincere. 
Traditions  and  ideals  are  the  most  priceless  part  of  a 
school's  equipment,  and  the  school  that  can  give  these 
things  to  its  students  in  richest  measure  will  have  the 
greatest  influence  on  the  succeeding  generations. 


IV 

The  Test  of  Efficiency  in  Supervision* 


I  KNOW  of  no  way  in  which  I  can  better  introduce  my 
subject  than  to  describe  very  briefly  the  work  of  a  super- 
intendent who  once  furnished  me  with  an  example  of  a 
definite  and  effective  method  of  supervision.  This  man 
was  a  "long  range"  superintendent.  It  was  impossible 
for  him  to  visit  his  schools  very  frequently,  and  so  he  did 
the  next  best  thing :  he  had  the  schools  brought  to  him. 
When  I  first  saw  him  he  was  poring  over  a  pile  of  papers 
that  had  just  come  in  from  one  of  his  schools.  I  soon 
discovered  that  these  papers  were  arranged  in  sets,  each 
set  being  made  up  of  samples  taken  each  week  from  the 
work  of  the  pupils  in  the  schools  under  his  supervision. 
The  papers  of  each  pupil  were  arranged  in  chronological 
order,  and  by  looking  through  the  set,  he  could  note  the 
growth  that  the  pupil  in  question  had  made  since  the 
beginning  of  the  term.  Upon  these  papers,  the  superin- 
tendent recorded  his  judgment  of  the  amount  of  improve- 
ment shown  both  in  form  and  in  content. 

*  A  paper  read  before  the  fifty-second  annual  meeting  of  the  New  York 
State  Association  of  School  Commissioners  and  Superintendents,  Novem- 
ber 8,  1907. 

63 


64  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

I  was  particularly  impressed  by  the  character  of  his 
criticisms.  There  was  nothing  vague  or  intangible  about 
them.  Every  annotation  was  clear  and  definite.  If  pen- 
manship happened  to  be  the  point  at  issue,  he  would  note 
that  the  lines  were  too  close  together;  that  the  letters 
did  not  have  sufl&cient  individuaUty ;  that  the  spaces 
between  the  words  were  not  sufficiently  wide;  that 
the  indentation  was  inadequate;  that  the  writing  was 
cramped,  showing  that  the  pen  had  not  been  held  prop- 
erly ;  that  the  margin  needed  correction.  If  the  papers 
were  defective  from  the  standpoint  of  language,  the  criti- 
cisms were  equally  clear  and  definite.  One  pupil  had 
misspelled  the  same  word  in  three  successive  papers. 
"Be  sure  that  this  word  appears  in  the  next  spelling  hst," 
was  the  comment  of  the  superintendent.  Another 
pupil  habitually  used  a  bit  of  false  syntax :  "Place  this 
upon  the  list  of  errors  to  be  taken  up  and  corrected." 
Still  others  were  uncertain  about  paragraphing :  "Devote 
a  language  lesson  to  the  paragraph  before  the  next  written 
exercise."  On  the  covers  of  each  bundle  of  class  papers, 
he  wrote  directions  and  suggestions  of  a  more  general 
nature;  for  example:  "Improvement  is  not  sufficiently 
marked;  try  for  better  results  next  time";  or:  "I  note 
that  the  pupils  draw  rather  than  write;  look  out  for 
free  movement."  Often,  too,  there  were  words  of  well- 
merited  praise:  "I  like  the  way  in  which  your  pupils 
have  responded  to  their  drill.  This  is  good.  Keep  it  up." 
And  not  infrequently  suggestions  were  made  as  to  con- 


THE   TEST   OF   EFFICIENCY   IN    SUPERVISION  65 

tent:  "Tell  this  story  in  greater  detail  next  time,  and 
have  it  reproduced  again  "  ;  or:  "  The  form  of  these  papers 
is  good,  but  the  nature  study  is  poor;  don't  sacrifice 
thought  to  form." 

In  similar  fashion,  the  other  written  work  was  gone 
over  and  annotated.  Every  pupil  in  this  system  of 
schools  had  a  sample  of  his  written  work  examined  at 
regular  and  frequent  intervals  by  the  superintendent. 
Every  teacher  knew  just  what  her  chief  demanded  in 
the  way  of  results,  and  did  her  best  to  gain  the  results 
demanded.  I  am  not  taking  the  position  that  the  results 
that  were  demanded  represented  the  highest  ideals  of 
what  the  elementary  school  should  accompHsh.  Good 
penmanship  and  good  spelling  and  good  language,  in  the 
light  of  contemporary  educational  thought,  seem  to  be 
something  like  happiness  —  you  get  them  in  larger 
measure  the  less  you  think  about  getting  them.  But 
this  possible  objection  aside,  the  superintendent  in  ques- 
tion had  developed  a  system  which  kept  him  in  very 
close  touch  with  the  work  that  was  being  done  in  widely 
separated  schools. 

He  told  me  further  that,  on  the  infrequent  occasions 
when  he  could  visit  his  classrooms,  he  gave  most  of  his 
time  and  attention  to  the  matters  that  could  not  be 
supervised  at  "long  range."  He  found  out  how  the 
pupils  were  improving  in  their  reading,  and  especially 
in  oral  expression,  in  its  syntax,  its  freedom  from  errors 
of  construction,  its  clearness  and  fluency.     He  listed  the 


66  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

common  errors,  directing  his  teachers  to  take  them  up 
in  a  systematic  manner  and  eradicate  them,  and  he  did 
not  fail  to  note  at  his  next  visit  how  much  progress  had 
been  made.  He  noted  the  condition  of  the  blackboard 
work,  and  kept  a  Ust  of  the  improvements  that  he  sug- 
gested. He  tested  for  rapidity  in  arithmetical  processes, 
for  the  papers  sent  to  his  office  gave  him  only  an  index 
of  accuracy.  He  noted  the  habits  of  personal  cleanliness 
that  were  being  developed  or  neglected.  In  fact,  he  had 
a  long  list  of  specific  standards  that  he  kept  continually 
in  mind,  the  progress  toward  which  he  constantly 
watched.  And  last,  but  by  no  means  least,  he  carried 
with  him  wherever  he  went  an  atmosphere  of  breezy 
good  nature  and  cheerfulness,  for  he  had  mastered  the 
first  principle  in  the  art  of  both  supervision  and  teaching ; 
he  had  learned  that  the  best  way  to  promote  growth  in 
either  pupils  or  teachers  is  neither  to  let  them  do  as  they 
please  nor  to  force  them  to  do  as  you  please,  but  to  get 
them  to  please  to  do  what  you  please  to  have  them  do. 

I  instance  this  superintendent  as  one  type  of  efl5ciency 
in  supervision.  He  was  efficient,  not  simply  because  he 
had  a  system  that  scrutinized  every  least  detail  of  his 
pupils'  growth,  but  because  that  scrutiny  really  insured 
growth.  He  obtained  the  results  that  he  desired,  and  he 
obtained  uniformly  good  results  from  a  large  number  of 
young,  untrained  teachers.  We  have  all  heard  of  the 
superintendent  who  boasted  that  he  could  tell  by  look- 
ing at  his  watch  just  what  any  pupil  in  any  classroom 


THE   TEST   OF   EFFICIENCY   IN   SUPERVISION  67 

was  doing  at  just  that  moment.  Surely  here  system 
was  not  lacking.  But  the  boast  did  not  strike  the  vital 
point.  It  is  not  what  the  pupil  is  doing  that  is  funda- 
mentally important,  but  what  he  is  gaining  from  his  ac- 
tivity or  inactivity;  what  he  is  gaining  in  the  way  of 
habits,  in  the  way  of  knowledge,  in  the  way  of  standards 
and  ideals  and  prejudices,  all  of  which  are  to  govern  his 
future  conduct.  The  superintendent  whom  I  have  de- 
scribed had  the  qualities  of  balance  and  perspective  that 
enabled  him  to  see  both  the  woods  and  the  trees.  And 
let  me  add  that  he  taught  regularly  in  his  own  central 
high  school,  and  that  practically  all  of  his  supervision  was 
accomplished  after  school  hours  and  on  Saturdays. 

But  my  chief  reason  for  choosing  his  work  as  a  type  is 
that  it  represents  a  successful  effort  to  supervise  that 
part  of  school  work  which  is  most  difficult  and  irksome  to 
supervise;  namely,  the  formation  of  habits.  Whatever 
one's  ideals  of  education  may  be,  it  still  remains  true  that 
habit  building  is  the  most  important  duty  of  the  elemen- 
tary school,  and  that  the  efficiency  of  habit  building  can 
be  tested  in  no  other  way  than  by  the  means  that  he 
employed;  namely,  the  careful  comparison  of  results  at 
successive  stages  of  the  process. 

II 

The  essence  of  a  true  habit  is  its  purely  automatic 
character.  Reaction  must  follow  upon  the  stimulus  in- 
stantaneously, without  thought,  reflection,  or  judgment. 


68  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

One  has  not  taught  spelHng  efficiently  until  spelling  is 
automatic,  until  the  correct  form  flows  from  the  pen 
without  the  intervention  of  mind.  The  real  test  of  the 
pupil's  training  in  spelUng  is  his  ability  to  spell  the  word 
correctly  when  he  is  thinking,  not  about  spelling,  but 
about  the  content  of  the  sentence  that  he  is  writing. 
Consequently  the  test  of  efficiency  in  spelling  is  not  an 
examination  in  spelling,  although  this  may  be  valuable 
as  a  means  to  an  end,  but  rather  the  infrequency  with 
which  misspelled  words  appear  in  the  composition  work, 
letter  writing,  and  other  written  work  of  the  pupil.  Simi- 
larly in  language  and  grammar,  it  is  not  sufficient  to  in- 
struct in  rules  of  syntax.  This  is  but  the  initial  process. 
Grammatical  rules  function  effectively  only  when  they 
function  automatically.  So  long  as  one  must  think  and 
judge  and  reflect  upon  the  form  of  one's  expression,  the 
expression  is  necessarily  awkward  and  inadequate. 

The  same  rule  holds  in  respect  of  the  fundamental 
processes  of  arithmetic.  It  holds  in  penmanship,  in  artic- 
ulation and  enunciation,  in  word  recognition,  in  moral 
conduct  and  good  manners;  in  fact,  in  all  of  the  basic 
work  for  which  the  elementary  school  must  stand  spon- 
sor. And  one  source  of  danger  in  the  newer  methods 
of  education  lies  in  the  tendency  to  overlook  the  impor- 
tance of  carrying  habit-building  processes  through  to  a 
successful  issue.  The  reaction  against  drill,  against 
formal  work  of  all  sorts,  is  a  healthful  reaction  in  many 
ways.    It  bids  fair  to  break  up  the  mechanical  lock  step 


THE   TEST   OF   EFFICIENCY   IN   SUPERVISION  69 

of  the  elementary  grades,  and  to  introduce  some  welcome 
life,  and  vigor,  and  wholesomeness.  But  it  will  sadly 
defeat  its  own  purpose  if  it  underrates  the  necessity  of 
habit  building  as  the  basic  activity  of  early  education. 

What  is  needed,  now  that  we  have  got  away  from  the 
lock  step,  now  that  we  are  happily  emancipated  from 
the  meaningless  thralldom  of  mechanical  repetition  and 
the  worship  of  drill  for  its  own  sake  —  what  is  needed  now 
is  not  less  drill,  but  better  drill.  And  this  should  be  the 
net  result  of  the  recent  reforms  in  elementary  education. 
In  our  first  enthusiasm,  we  threw  away  the  spelling 
book,  poked  fun  at  the  multiplication  tables,  decried 
basal  reading,  and  relieved  ourselves  of  much  wit  and 
sarcasm  at  the  expense  of  formal  grammar.  But  now  we 
are  swinging  back  to  the  adequate  recognition  of  the  true 
purpose  of  drill.  And  in  the  wake  of  this  newer  concep- 
tion, we  are  learning  that  its  drudgery  may  be  lightened 
and  its  efl&ciency  heightened  by  the  introduction  of  a 
richer  content  that  shall  provide  a  greater  variety  in 
the  repetitions,  insure  an  adequate  motive  for  effort,  and 
reUeve  the  dead  monotony  that  frequently  rendered  the 
older  methods  so  futile.  I  look  forward  to  the  time 
when  to  be  an  efficient  drillmaster  in  this  newer  sense  of 
the  term  will  be  to  have  reached  one  of  the  pinnacles  of 
professional  skill. 

Ill 

But  there  is  another  side  of  teaching  that  must  be  super- 
vised.   Although  habit  is  responsible  for  nine  tenths  of 


70  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

conduct,  the  remaining  tenth  must  not  be  neglected.  In 
situations  where  habit  is  not  adequate  to  adjustment, 
judgment  and  reflection  must  come  to  the  rescue,  or 
should  come  to  the  rescue.  This  means  that,  instead  of 
acting  without  thought,  as  in  the  case  of  habit,  one  ana- 
lyzes the  situation  and  tries  to  solve  it  by  the  application 
of  some  fact  or  principle  that  has  been  gained  either  from 
one's  own  experience  or  from  the  experience  of  others. 
This  is  the  field  in  which  knowledge  comes  to  its  own ; 
and  a  very  important  task  of  education  is  to  fix  in  the 
pupils'  minds  a  number  of  facts  and  principles  that  will 
be  available  for  appUcation  to  the  situations  of  later  life. 

How,  then,  is  the  efficiency  of  instruction  (as  distin- 
guished from  training  or  habit  building)  to  be  tested? 
Needless  to  say,  an  adequate  test  is  impossible  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  situation.  The  efficiency  of  imparting 
knowledge  can  be  tested  only  by  the  effect  that  this 
knowledge  has  upon  later  conduct;  and  this,  it  will 
be  agreed,  cannot  be  accurately  determined  until  the 
pupil  has  left  the  school  and  is  face  to  face  with  the 
problems  of  real  life. 

In  practice,  however,  we  adopt  a  more  or  less  effective 
substitute  for  the  real  test  —  the  substitute  called  the  ex- 
amination. We  all  know  that  the  ultimate  purp)ose  of 
instruction  is  not  primarily  to  enable  pupils  successfully 
to  pass  examinations.  And  yet  as  long  as  we  teach  as 
though  this  were  the  main  purpose  we  might  as  well  be- 
lieve it  to  be.    Now  the  examination  may  be  made  a  very 


THE   TEST   OF   EFFICIENCY   IN   SUPERVISION  7 1 

valuable  test  of  the  efficiency  of  instruction  if  its  limita- 
tions are  fully  recognized  and  if  it  does  not  obscure  the 
true  purpose  of  instruction.  And  if  we  remember  that  the 
true  purpose  is  to  impart  facts  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
may  not  only  "stick"  in  the  pupil's  mind,  but  that  they 
may  also  be  amenable  to  recall  and  practical  appKcation, 
and  if  we  set  our  examination  questions  with  some  refer- 
ence to  this  requirement,  then  I  believe  that  we  shall  find 
the  examination  a  dependable  test. 

One  important  point  is  likely  to  be  overlooked  in  the 
consideration  of  examinations,  —  the  fact,  namely,  that 
the  form  and  content  of  the  questions  have  a  very 
powerful  influence  in  determining  the  content  and 
methods  of  instruction.  Is  it  not  pertinent,  then,  to  in- 
quire whether  examination  questions  cannot  be  so  framed 
as  radically  to  improve  instruction  rather  than  to  en- 
courage, as  is  often  the  case,  methods  that  are  pedagogi- 
cally  unsoimd  ?  Granted  that  it  is  well  for  the  child  to 
memorize  verbatim  certain  unrelated  facts,  even  to  mem- 
orize some,  facts  that  have  no  immediate  bearing  upon 
his  life,  granted  that  this  is  valuable  (and  I  think  that  a 
little  of  it  is),  is  it  necessary  that  an  entire  year  or  half- 
year  be  given  over  almost  entirely  to  "cramming  up" 
on  old  questions  ?  Would  it  not  be  possible  so  to  frame 
examination  questions  that  the  "cramming"  process 
would  be  practically  valueless? 

What  the  pupil  should  get  from  geography,  for  in- 
stance, is  not  only  a  knowledge  of  geographical  facts,  but 


72  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

also,  and  more  fundamentally,  the  power  to  see  the  rela- 
tion of  these  facts  to  his  own  life;  in  other  words,  the 
ability  to  apply  his  knowledge  to  the  improvement  of 
adjustment.  Now  this  power  is  very  closely  associated 
with  the  ability  to  grasp  fundamental  principles,  to  see 
the  relation  of  cause  and  effect  working  below  the  sur- 
face of  diverse  phenomena.  Geography,  to  be  practical, 
must  impress  not  only  the  fact,  but  also  the  principle 
that  rationaUzes  or  explains  the  fact.  It  must  empha- 
size the  "why"  as  well  as  the  "what."  For  example: 
it  is  well  for  the  pupil  to  know  that  New  York  is  the 
largest  city  in  the  United  States ;  it  is  better  that  he 
should  know  why  New  York  has  become  the  largest  city 
in  the  United  States.  It  is  well  to  know  that  South 
America  extends  very  much  farther  to  the  east  than 
does  North  America,  but  it  is  better  to  know  that  this 
fact  has  had  an  important  bearing  in  determining  the 
commercial  relations  that  exist  between  South  America 
and  Europe.  Questions  that  have  reference  to  these 
larger  relations  of  cause  and  effect  may  be  so  framed  that 
no  amount  of  "cramming"  will  alone  insure  correct  an- 
s^yers.  They  may  be  so  framed  that  the  pupil  will  be 
forced  to  do  some  thinking  for  himself,  will  be  forced  to 
solve  an  imaginary  situation  very  much  as  he  would 
solve  a  real  situation. 

Examination  questions  of  this  type  would  react  benefi- 
cially upon  the  methods  of  instruction.  They  would  tend 
to  place  a  premium  upon  that  type  of  instruction  that 


THE   TEST   OF   EFFICIENCY  IN   SUPERVISION  73 

develops  initiative  in  solving  problems,  instead  of  encour- 
aging the  memoriter  methods  that  tend  to  crush  what- 
ever germs  of  initiative  the  pupil  may  possess.  This  does 
not  mean  that  the  memoriter  work  should  be  excluded. 
A  solid  basis  of  fact  is  essential  to  the  mastery  of  principles. 
Personally  I  beUeve  that  the  work  of  the  intermediate 
grades  should  be  planned  to  give  the  pupil  this  factual 
basis.  This  would  leave  the  upper  grades  free  for  the 
more  rational  work.  In  any  case,  I  believe  that  the 
efficiency  of  examinations  may  be  greatly  increased  by 
giving  one  or  two  questions  that  must  be  answered 
by  a  reasoning  process  for  every  question  that  may  be 
answered  by  verbal  memory  alone. 

IV 

Thus  far  it  seems  clear  that  an  absolute  standard  is 
available  for  testing  the  efficiency  of  training  or  habit 
building,  and  that  a  fairly  accurate  standard  may  be 
developed  for  testing  the  efficiency  of  instruction.  Both 
training  and  instruction,  however,  are  subject  to  the 
modifying  influence  of  a  third  factor  of  which  too  little 
account  has  hitherto  been  taken  in  educational  discus- 
sions. Training  results  in  habits,  and  yet  a  certain  sort  of 
training  may  not  only  result  in  a  certain  type  of  habit, 
but  it  may  also  result  in  the  development  of  something 
which  will  quite  negate  the  habit  that  has  been  developed. 
In  the  process  of  developing  habits  of  neatness,  for  ex- 
ample, one  may  employ  methods  that  result  in  prejudicing 


74  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

the  child  against  neatness  as  a  general  virtue.  In  this 
event,  although  the  little  specific  habits  of  neatness  may 
function  in  the  situations  in  which  they  have  been  de- 
veloped, the  prejudice  will  effectually  prevent  their  ex- 
tension to  other  fields.  In  other  words,  the  general  emo- 
tional effect  of  training  must  be  considered  as  well  as  the 
specific  results  of  the  training.  The  same  stricture  ap- 
pUes  with  equal  force  to  instruction.  Instruction  im- 
parts knowledge ;  but  if  a  man  knows  and  fails  to  feel,  his 
knowledge  has  little  influence  upon  his  conduct. 

This  factor  that  controls  conduct  when  habit  fails,  this 
factor  that  may  even  negate  an  otherwise  efficient  habit, 
is  the  great  indeterminate  in  the  work  of  teaching. 
To  know  that  one  has  trained  an  effective  habit  or  im- 
parted a  practical  principle  is  one  thing ;  to  know  that  in 
doing  this,  one  has  not  engendered  in  the  pupil's  mind  a 
prejudice  against  the  very  thing  taught  is  quite  another 
matter. 

That  phase  of  teaching  which  is  concerned  with  the 
development  of  these  intangible  forces  may  be  termed 
"inspiration" ;  and  it  is  the  lack  of  an  adequate  test  for 
the  efficiency  of  inspiration  that  makes  the  task  of  super- 
vision so  difficult  and  the  results  so  often  unsatisfactory. 

Nevertheless,  even  here  the  outlook  is  not  entirely 
hopeless.  One  may  be  tolerably  certain  of  at  least  two 
things.  In  the  first  place,  the  great  "emotionalized  preju- 
dices" that  must  come  predominantly  from  school  in- 
fluences are  the  love  of  truth,  the  love  of  work,  respect  for 


THE   TEST  OF   EFFICIENCY   IN   SUPERVISION  75 

law  and  order,  and  a  spirit  of  cooperation.  These  factors 
undoubtedly  have  their  basis  in  specific  habits  of  honesty, 
industry,  obedience,  and  regard  for  the  rights  and  feeUngs 
of  others ;  and  these  habits  may  be  developed  and  tested 
just  as  thoroughly  and  just  as  accurately  as  habits  of 
good  spelhng  and  correct  syntax.  Without  the  solid 
basis  of  habit,  ideals  and  prejudices  will  be  of  but  little 
service.  The  one  caution  must  be  taken  that  the  methods 
of  training  do  not  defeat  their  own  purpose  by  engender- 
ing prejudices  and  ideals  that  negate  the  habits.  It  is 
here  that  the  personahty  of  the  teacher  becomes  the  all- 
important  factor,  and  the  task  of  the  supervisor  is  to 
determine  whether  the  influence  of  the  personahty  is  good 
or  evil.  Most  supervisors  come  to  judge  of  this  influence 
by  an  imdefined  factor  that  is  best  termed  the  "spirit  of 
the  classroom." 
\lf  The  second  hopeful  feature  of  the  task  of  supervision 
in  respect  of  inspiration  is  that  this  "spirit"  is  an 
extremely  contagious  and  pervasive  thing.  In  other 
words,  the  principal  or  the  superintendent  may  dominate 
every  classroom  under  his  supervision,  almost  without 
regard  to  the  limitations  of  the  individual  teachers. 
Typical  schools  in  every  city  system  bear  compelling 
testimony  to  this  fact.    The  principal  is  the  school. 

And  if  I  were  to  sum  up  the  essential  characteristics  of 
the  ideal  supervisor,  I  could  not  neglect  this  point.  After 
all,  the  two  great  dangers  that  beset  him  are,  first,  the 
danger  of  sloth  —  the  old  Adam  of  laziness  —  which  will 


76  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

tempt  him  to  avoid  the  details,  to  shirk  the  drudgejy^o 
escape  the  close  and  wearisome  scrutiny  of  little  things ; 
and,  secondly,  the  sin  of  triviality, —  the  inertia  which 
holds  him  to  details  and  never  permits  him  to  take  the 
broader  view  and  see  the  true  ends  toward  which  details 
are  but  the  means.  The  proper  combination  of  these 
two  factors  is  all  too  rare,  but  it  is  in  this  combination 
that  the  ideal  supervisor  is  to  be  found. 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER 

I 

It  is  difficult  not  to  be  depressed  by  the  irrational 
radicalism  of  contemporary  educational  theory.  It  would 
seem  that  the  workers  in  the  higher  ranges  of  educa- 
tional activity  should,  of  all  men,  preserve  a  balanced 
judgment  and  a  sane  outlook,  and  yet  there  is  prob- 
ably no  other  human  calling  that  presents  the  strange 
phenomenon  of  men  who  are  called  experts  throwing 
overboard  everything  that  the  past  has  sanctioned,  and 
embarking  without  chart  or  compass  upon  any  new  ven- 
ture that  happens  to  catch  popular  fancy.  The  non-pro- 
fessional character  of  education  is  nowhere  more  painfully 
apparent  than  in  the  expression  of  this  tendency.  The 
literature  of  teaching  that  is  written  directly  out  of  ex- 
perience —  out  of  actual  adjustment  to  the  teaching 
situation  —  is  almost  laughed  out  of  court  in  some  educa- 
tional circles.  But  if  one  wishes  to  win  the  applause  of 
the  multitude  one  may  do  it  easily  enough  by  proclaim- 
ing some  new  and  untried  plan.  At  our  educational 
gatherings  you  notice  above  everything  else  a  straining 
for  spectacular  and  bizarre  effects.    It  is  the  novel  that 

77 


78  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

catches  attention;  and  it  sometimes  seems  to  me  that 
those  who  know  the  least  about  the  educational  situation 
in  the  way  of  direct  contact  often  receive  the  largest 
share  of  attention  and  have  the  largest  influence. 

It  is  in  the  attitude  of  the  public  and  of  a  certain  pro- 
portion of  school  men  toward  elementary  teaching  and  the 
elementary  teacher  that  this  destructive  criticism  finds 
its  most  pronoimced  expression.  Throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land,  the  eflSciency  of  the  pubhc  school 
and  the  sincerity  and  inteUigence  of  those  who  are  giving 
their  lives  to  its  work  are  being  called  into  question.  It 
is  discouraging  to  think  that  years  of  service  in  a  calling 
do  not  quahfy  one  to  speak  authoritatively  upon  the 
problems  of  that  calling,  and  especially  upon  technique. 
And  yet  it  is  precisely  upon  that  point  of  technique 
that  the  criticisms  of  elementary  education  are  most 
drastic. 

Our  educational  system  is  sometimes  branded  as  a 
failure,  and  yet  this  same  educational  system  with  all 
its  weaknesses  has  accompUshed  the  task  of  assimilating 
to  American  institutions  and  ideals  and  standards  the 
most  heterogeneous  infusion  of  alien  stocks  that  ever 
went  to  the  making  of  a  united  people.  The  elemen- 
tary teacher  is  criticized  for  all  the  sins  of  omission 
that  the  calendar  enumerates,  and  yet  this  same  ele- 
mentary teacher  is  daily  lifting  millions  of  children 
to  a  plane  of  civilization  and  culture  that  no  other 
people   in  history  have  even  thought  possible.     I  am 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       79 

willing  to  admit  the  deficiencies  of  American  education, 
but  I  also  maintain  that  the  teachers  of  our  lower 
schools  do  not  deserve  the  opprobrium  that  has  been 
heaped  upon  them.  I  believe  that  in  education,  as  in 
business,  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if  we  saw  more  of  the 
doughnut  and  less  of  the  hole.  When  I  hear  a  prominent 
educator  say  that  we  must  discard  everything  that  we 
have  produced  thus  far  and  begin  anew  in  the  realm  of 
educational  materials  and  methods,  I  confess  that  I  am 
discouraged,  especially  when  that  same  authority  is  ex- 
tremely obscure  as  to  the  materials  and  methods  that  we 
should  substitute  for  those  that  we  are  now  employing. 
I  heard  that  statement  at  a  recent  meeting  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Superintendence,  and  I  heard  other  things  of  like 
tenor, — for  example,  that  normal  schools  were  perpetuat- 
ing types  of  skill  in  teaching  that  were  unworthy  of  per- 
petuation, that  the  observation  of  teaching  was  valueless 
in  the  training  of  teachers  because  there  was  nothing  that 
was  being  done  at  the  present  time  that  was  worthy  of 
imitation,  that  practice  teaching  in  the  training  of  young 
teachers  is  a  farce,  a  delusion,  and  a  snare.  Those  very 
words  were  employed  by  one  man  of  high  position  to  ex- 
press his  opinion  of  contemporary  practices.  You  cannot 
pick  up  an  educational  journal  of  the  better  sort,  nor  open 
a  new  educational  book,  without  being  brought  face  to 
face  with  this  destructive  criticism. 

I  protest  against  this,  not  only  in  the  name  of  justice, 
but  in  the  name  of  common  sense.    It  cannot  be  possible 


8o  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

that  generations  of  dealing  with  immature  minds  should 
have  left  no  residuum  of  effective  practice.  The  very 
principle  of  progress  by  trial  and  error  will  inevitably 
mean  that  certain  practices  that  are  possible  and  helpful 
and  effective  are  perpetuated,  and  that  certain  other  pro- 
cesses that  are  ineffective  and  wasteful  are  eliminated. 
To  repudiate  all  this  is  the  height  of  folly.  If  the  history 
of  progress  shows  us  anything,  it  shows  us  that  progress 
is  not  made  by  repudiating  the  lessons  of  experience. 
Theory  is  the  last  word,  not  the  first.  Theory  should 
explain :  it  should  take  successful  practice  and  find  out 
what  principles  condition  its  efficiency ;  and  if  these 
principles  are  inconsistent  with  those  heretofore  held, 
it  is  the  theory  that  should  be  modified  to  suit  the  facts, 
not  the  facts  to  suit  the  theory. 

My  opponents  may  point  to  medicine  as  a  possible 
example  of  the  opposite  procedure.  And  yet  if  there 
is  anything  that  the  history  of  medical  science  dem- 
onstrates, it  is  that  the  first  cues  to  new  discoveries 
were  made  in  the  field  of  practice.  Lymph  therapy, 
which  is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  modem  medicine,  was 
discovered  empirically.  It  was  an  accident  of  practice, 
a  blind  procedure  of  trial  and  success  that  led  to 
Jenner's  discovery  of  the  virtues  of  vaccination.  A 
century  passed  before  theory  adequately  explained  the 
phenomenon,  and  opened  the  way  to  those  wider  ap>- 
plications  of  the  principle  that  have  done  so  much  to 
reduce  the  ravages  of  disease. 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       8 1 

The  value  of  theory,  I  repeat,  is  to  explain  successful 
practice  and  to  generalize  experience  in  broad  and 
comprehensive  principles  which  can  be  easily  held  in 
mind,  and  from  which  inferences  for  further  new  and 
eflfective  practices  may  be  derived.  We  have  a  small 
body  of  sound  principles  in  education  to-day,  —  a  body 
of  principles  that  are  thoroughly  consistent  with  suc- 
cessful practice.  But  the  sort  of  principles  that  are 
put  forth  as  the  last  words  of  educational  theory  are 
often  far  from  sound.  Personally  I  firmly  believe  that 
a  vast  amount  of  damage  is  being  done  to  children  by 
the  application  of  fallacious  principles  which,  because 
they  emanate  from  high  authority,  obtain  an  artificial 
validity  in  the  minds  of  teachers  in  service. 

I  cannot  understand  why,  when  an  educational  ex- 
periment fails  lamentably,  it  is  not  rejected  as  a  failure. 
And  yet  you  and  I  know  a  number  of  instances  where 
certain  educational  experiments  that  have  undeniably 
reversed  the  hypotheses  of  those  who  initiated  them 
are  excused  on  the  ground  that  conditions  were  not 
favorable.  That,  it  seems  to  me,  should  tell  the  whole 
story,  for  precisely  what  we  need  in  educational  prac- 
tice is  a  body  of  doctrine  that  will  work  where  condi- 
tions are  unfavorable.  We  are  told  that  the  successful 
application  of  mooted  theories  depends  upon  the  proper 
kind  of  teachers.  I  maintain  that  the  most  effective 
sort  of  theory  is  the  sort  that  brings  results  with  such 
teachers  as  we  must  employ  in  our  work.    It  would 


82  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

be  a  poor  recommendation  for  a  theory  of  medicine  to 
say  that  it  worked  all  right  when  people  are  healthy 
but  failed  to  help  the  sick.  Nor  is  it  true  that  good 
teachers  can  get  good  results  by  following  bad  theory. 
They  often  obtain  the  results  by  evading  the  theory, 
and  when  they  live  up  to  it,  the  results  faithfully  re- 
flect the  theory,  no  matter  how  skillful  the  teaching. 

n 

Statements  like  these  are  very  apt  to  be  miscon- 
strued or  misinterpreted  unless  one  is  very  careful  to 
define  one's  position;  and,  after  what  I  have  said,  I 
should  do  myself  an  injustice  if  I  did  not  make  certain 
that  my  position  is  clear.  I  beUeve  in  experimentation 
in  education.  I  beheve  in  experimental  schools.  But 
I  should  wish  these  schools  to  be  interpreted  as  experi- 
ments and  not  as  models,  and  I  should  wish  that  the 
failure  of  an  experiment  be  accepted  with  good,  scien- 
tific grace,  and  not  with  the  unscientific  attitude  of 
making  excuses.  The  trouble  with  an  experimental 
school  is  that,  in  the  eyes  of  the  great  mass  of  teachers, 
it  becomes  a  model  school,  and  the  principles  that  it 
represents  are  apphed  ad  libitum  by  thousands  of 
teachers  who  assume  that  they  have  heard  the  last 
word  in  educational  theory. 

No  one  is  more  favorably  disposed  toward  the  rights 
of  children  than  I  am,  and  yet  I  am  thoroughly  con- 
vinced   that    soft-heartedness   accompanied    by    soft- 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       83 

headedness  is  weakening  the  mental  and  moral  fiber 
of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  boys  and  girls  through- 
out this  country.  No  one  admires  more  than  I  admire 
the  sagacity  and  far-sightedness  of  Judge  Lindsey,  and 
yet  when  Judge  Lindsey's  methods  are  proposed  as 
models  for  school  government,  I  cannot  lose  sight,  as 
so  many  people  seem  to  lose  sight,  of  the  contingent 
factor ;  namely,  that  Judge  Lindsey's  leniency  is  based 
upon  authority,  and  that  if  Judge  Lindsey  or  any- 
body else  attempted  to  be  lenient  when  he  had  no 
power  to  be  otherwise  than  lenient,  his  "  bluff " 
would  be  called  in  short  order.  If  you  will  give  to 
teachers  and  principals  the  same  power  that  you  give 
to  the  police  judge,  you  may  well  expect  them  to  be 
lenient.  The  great  trouble  in  the  school  is  simply  this : 
that  just  in  the  proportion  that  leniency  is  demanded, 
authority  is  taken  away  from  the  teacher. 

And  I  should  perhaps  say  a  qualifying  word  with 
regard  to  my  attitude  toward  educational  theory.  I 
have  every  feeling  of  affection  for  the  science  of  psy- 
chology. I  have  every  faith  in  the  value  of  psycho- 
logical principles  in  the  interpretation  of  educational 
phenomena.  But  I  also  recognize  that  the  science  of 
psychology  is  a  very  young  science,  and  that  its  data 
are  not  yet  so  well  organized  that  it  is  safe  to  draw 
from  them  anything  more  than  tentative  hypotheses 
which  must  meet  their  final  test  in  the  crucible  of  prac- 
tice.   Some  day,  if  we  work  hard  enough,  psychology 


84  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

will  become  a  predictive  science,  just  as  mathematics 
and  physics  and  chemistry  and,  to  a  certain  extent, 
biology,  are  predictive  sciences  to-day.  Meantime 
psychology  is  of  inestimable  value  in  giving  us  a  point 
of  view,  in  clarifying  our  ideas,  and  in  rationalizing  the 
truths  that  empirical  practice  discovers.  A  very  few 
psychological  principles  are  strongly  enough  established 
even  now  to  form  the  basis  of  prediction.  Among  the 
most  important  of  these  are  the  laws  of  habit  building, 
some  laws  of  memory,  and  the  larger  principles  of 
attention.  Successful  educational  practice  is  and  must 
be  in  accord  with  these  indisputable  tenets.  But  the 
bane  of  education  to-day  is  in  the  pseudo-science,  the 
"half-baked"  psychology,  that  is  lauded  from  the  house- 
tops by  untrained  enthusiasts,  turned  from  the  presses 
by  irresponsible  pubUshing  houses,  and  foisted  upon  the 
hungry  teaching  public  through  the  ever-present  medium 
of  the  reading  circle,  the  teachers'  institute,  the  summer 
school,  and  I  am  very  sorry  to  admit  (for  I  think  that 
I  represent  both  institutions  in  a  way)  sometimes  by 
the  normal  schools  and  universities. 

Most  of  the  doctrines  that  are  turning  our  practice 
topsy-turvy  have  absolutely  no  support  from  competent 
psychologists.  The  doctrine  of  spontaneity  and  its 
attendant  laissez-faire  dogma  of  school  government  is 
thoroughly  inconsistent  with  good  psychology.  The 
radical  extreme  to  which  some  educators  would  push 
the  doctrine  of  interest  when  they  maintain  that  the 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       85 

child  should  never  be  asked  to  do  anything  for  which 
he  fails  to  find  a  need  in  his  own  life,  —  this  doctrine 
can  find  no  support  in  good  psychology.  The  doctrine 
that  the  preadolescent  child  should  understand  thor- 
oughly every  process  that  he  is  expected  to  reduce  to 
habit  before  that  process  is  made  automatic  is  utterly 
at  variance  with  long-established  principles  which  were 
well  understood  by  the  Greeks  and  the  Hebrews  twenty- 
five  hundred  years  ago,  and  to  which  Mother  Nature 
herself  gives  the  lie  in  the  instincts  of  imitation  and 
repetition.  It  is  conceivable  that  these  radical  doc- 
trines were  justified  as  means  of  reform,  especially  in 
secondary  and  higher  education,  but,  even  granting  this, 
their  function  is  fulfilled  when  the  reform  that  they 
exploited  has  been  accomplished.  That  time  has  come 
and,  as  palpable  untruths,  they  should  either  be  modified 
to  meet  the  facts,  or  be  relegated  to  oblivion. 


m 


It  is  safe  to  say  that  formahsm  is  no  longer  a 
characteristic  feature  of  the  typical  American  school. 
It  is  so  long  since  I  have  heard  any  rote  learning  in  a 
schoolroom  that  I  am  wondering  if  it  is  not  almost 
time  for  some  one  to  show  that  a  little  rote  learning 
would  not  be  at  all  a  bad  thing  in  preadolescent  educa- 
tion. We  ridicule  the  memoriter  methods  of  Chinese 
education  and  yet  we  sometimes  forget  that  Chinese 


86  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

education  has  done  something  that  no  other  system  of 
education,  however  well  planned,  has  even  begun  to  do 
in  the  same  degree.  It  has  kept  the  Chinese  empire  a 
unit  through  a  period  of  time  compared  with  which  the 
entire  history  of  Greece  and  Rome  is  but  an  episode. 
We  may  ridicule  the  formahsm  of  Hebrew  education, 
and  yet  the  schools  of  rabbis  have  preserved  intact  the 
racial  integrity  of  the  Jewish  people  during  the  two 
thousand  years  that  have  elapsed  since  their  geographi- 
cal unity  was  destroyed.  I  am  not  justifying  the 
methods  of  Chinese  or  Hebrew  education.  I  am  quite 
willing  to  admit  that,  in  China  at  any  rate,  the  game 
may  not  have  been  worth  the  candle;  but  I  am  still 
far  from  convinced  that  it  is  not  a  good  thing  for  chil- 
dren to  reduce  to  verbal  form  a  good  many  things  that 
are  now  never  learned  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  any 
lasting  impression  upon  the  memory ;  and  our  criticism 
of  oriental  formalism  is  not  so  much  concerned  with  the 
method  of  learning  as  with  the  content  of  learning,  — 
not  so  much  with  learning  by  heart  as  with  the  char- 
acter of  the  material  that  was  thus  memorized. 

But,  although  formalism  is  no  longer  a  distinctive 
feature  of  American  education,  formahsm  is  the  point 
from  which  education  is  most  frequently  attacked,  — 
and  this  is  the  chief  source  of  my  dissatisfaction  with 
the  present-day  critics  of  our  elementary  schools.  In 
a  great  many  cases,  they  have  set  up  a  man  of  straw 
and  demohshed  him  completely.    And  in  demolishing 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       87 

him,  they  have  incidentally  knocked  the  props  from 
under  the  feet  of  many  a  good  teacher,  leaving  him 
dazed  and  uncertain  of  his  bearings,  stung  with  the  con- 
viction that  what  he  has  been  doing  for  his  pupils  is 
entirely  without  value,  that  his  life  of  service  has  been 
a  failure,  that  the  lessons  of  his  own  experience  are  not 
to  be  trusted,  nor  the  verdicts  of  his  own  intelligence 
respected.  Go  to  any  of  the  great  summer  schools  and 
you  will  meet,  among  the  attending  teachers,  hundreds 
of  faithful,  conscientious  men  and  women  who  could 
tell  you  if  they  would  (and  some  of  them  will)  of  the 
muddle  in  which  their  minds  are  left  after  some  of  the 
lectures  to  which  they  have  hstened.  Why  should  they 
fail  to  be  depressed?  The  whole  weight  of  academic 
authority  seems  to  be  against  them.  The  entire  ma- 
chinery of  educational  administration  is  wheeling  them 
with  relentless  force  into  paths  that  seem  to  them 
hopelessly  intricate  and  bewildering.  If  it  is  true,  as  I 
think  it  is,  that  some  of  the  proposals  of  modem  edu- 
cation are  an  attempt  to  square  the  circle,  it  is  certainly 
true  that  the  classroom  teacher  is  standing  at  the  pres- 
sure points  in  this  procedure. 

We  hear  expressed  on  every  side  a  great  deal  of  sym- 
pathy for  the  child  as  the  victim  of  our  educational 
system.  Sympathy  for  childhood  is  the  most  natural 
thing  in  the  world.  It  is  one  of  the  basic  human  in- 
stincts, and  its  expressions  are  among  the  finest  things 
in  human  life.     But  why  limit  our  sympathy  to  the 


88  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

child,  especiaUy  to-day  when  he  is  about  as  happy  and 
as  fortunate  an  individual  as  anybody  has  ever  been  in 
all  history.  Why  not  let  a  little  of  it  go  out  to  the 
teacher  of  this  child?  Why  not  plan  a  little  for  her 
comfort  and  welfare  and  encouragement?  It  is  her 
skill  that  is  assimilating  the  children  of  our  alien  popu- 
lation. It  is  her  strength  that  is  Hfting  bodily  each 
generation  to  the  ever-advancing  race  levels.  Her  work 
must  be  the  main  source  of  the  inspiration  that  will 
impel  the  race  to  further  advancement.  And  yet  when 
these  half-million  teachers  who  mean  so  much  to  this 
coimtry  gather  at  their  institutes,  when  they  attend 
the  summer  schools,  when  they  take  up  their  professional 
journals,  what  do  they  hear  and  read  ?  Criticisms  of  their 
work.  Denunciations  of  their  methods.  Serious  doubts 
of  their  intelligence.  Aspersions  cast  upon  their  sin- 
cerity, their  patience,  and  their  loyalty  to  their  superiors. 
This,  mingled  with  some  mawkish  sentimentalism  that 
passes  under  the  name  of  inspiration.  Only  occa- 
sionally a  word  of  downright  commendation,  a  sign  of 
honest  and  heartfelt  appreciation,  a  note  of  sympathy 
or  encouragement. 

Carnegie  gives  fifteen  million  dollars  to  provide  pen- 
sions for  superannuated  college  professors;  but  the 
elementary  teacher  who  is  not  fortunate  enough  to  die 
in  harness  must  look  forward  to  the  almshouse.  The 
people  tax  themselves  for  magnificent  buildings  and 
luxurious  furnishings,  but  not  one  cent  do  they  offer  for 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       89 

teachers'  pensions.  What  a  blot  upon  Western  civiliza- 
tion is  this  treatment  of  the  teachers  in  our  lower  schools. 
These  people  are  doing  the  work  that  even  the  savage 
races  universally  consider  to  be  of  the  highest  type. 
Benighted  China  places  her  teachers  second  only  to  the 
literati  themselves  in  the  place  of  honor.  The  Hindus 
made  the  teaching  profession  the  highest  caste  in  the 
social  scale.  The  Jews  intrusted  the  education  of  their 
children  to  their  Rabbis,  the  most  learned  and  the 
most  honored  of  their  race.  It  is  only  Western  civili- 
zation —  it  is  almost  only  our  much-lauded  Anglo- 
Saxon  civilization  —  that  denies  to  the  teacher  a  sta- 
tion in  life  befitting  his  importance  as  a  social  servant. 

IV 

But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  school  supervision? 
As  I  view  it,  the  supervisor  of  schools  as  the  overseer 
and  director  of  the  educational  process,  is  just  now 
confronted  with  two  great  problems.  The  first  of  these 
is  to  keep  a  clear  head  in  the  present  muddled  condition 
of  educational  theory.  From  the  very  fact  of  his  posi- 
tion, the  supervisor  must  be  a  leader,  whether  he  will 
or  not.  It  is  a  maxim  of  our  profession  that  the  prin- 
cipal is  the  school.  In  our  city  systems  the  supervising 
principal  is  given  almost  absolute  authority  over  the 
school  of  which  he  has  charge.  In  him  is  vested  the 
ultimate  responsibility  for  instruction,  for  discipline,  for 
the  care  and  condition  of  the  material  property.    He 


90  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

may  be  a  despot  if  he  wishes,  benevolent  or  otherwise. 
With  this  power  goes  a  corresponding  opportunity. 
His  school  can  stand  for  something,  —  perhaps  for 
something  new  and  strange  which  will  bring  him  into 
the  limelight  to-day,  no  matter  what  its  character; 
perhaps  for  something  solid  and  enduring,  something 
that  will  last  long  after  his  own  name  has  been  for- 
gotten. The  temptation  was  never  so  strong  as  it  is 
to-day  for  the  supervisor  to  seek  the  former  kind  of 
glory.  The  need  was  never  more  acute  than  it  is  to-day 
for  the  supervisor  who  is  content  with  the  impersonal 
glory  of  the  latter  type. 

I  admit  that  it  is  a  somewhat  thankless  task  to  do 
things  in  a  straightforward,  effective  way,  without  fuss 
or  feathers,  and  I  suppose  that  the  applause  of  the 
gallery  may  be  easily  mistaken  for  the  applause  of  the 
pit.  But  nevertheless  the  seeker  for  notoriety  is  doing 
the  cause  of  education  a  vast  amount  of  harm.  I  know 
a  principal  who  won  ephemeral  fame  by  introducing 
into  his  school  a  form  of  the  Japanese  jiu-jitsu  physical 
exercises.  When  I  visited  that  school,  I  was  led  to 
believe  that  jiu-jitsu  would  be  the  salvation  of  the 
American  people.  Whole  classes  of  girls  and  boys  were 
marched  to  the  large  basement  to  be  put  through  their 
paces  for  the  delectation  of  visitors.  The  newspapers 
took  it  up  and  heralded  it  as  another  indication  that 
the  formalism  of  the  pubhc  school  was  gradually  break- 
ing down.    Visitors  came  by  the  hundreds,   and  my 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       9 1 

friend  basked  in  the  limelight  of  public  adulation  while 
his  colleagues  turned  green  with  envy  and  set  them- 
selves to  devising  some  means  for  turning  attention  in 
their  direction. 

And  yet,  there  are  some  principals  who  move  on  in 
the  even  tenor  of  their  ways,  year  after  year,  while  all 
these  currents  and  countercurrents  are  seething  and 
eddying  around  them.  They  hold  fast  to  that  which 
they  know  is  good  until  that  which  they  know  is  better 
can  be  found.  They  believe  in  the  things  that  they  do, 
so  the  chances  are  greatly  increased  that  they  will  do 
them  well.  They  refuse  to  be  bulhed  or  sneered  at  or 
laughed  out  of  court  because  they  do  not  take  up  with 
every  fancy  that  catches  the  popular  mind.  They  have 
their  own  professional  standards  as  to  what  constitutes 
competent  schoolmanship,  —  their  own  standards  gained 
from  their  own  specialized  experience.  And  somehow 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  just  now  that  is  the  type 
of  supervisor  that  we  need  and  the  type  that  ought 
to  be  encouraged.  If  I  were  talking  to  Chinese  teach- 
ers, I  might  preach  another  sort  of  gospel,  but  Ameri- 
can education  to-day  needs  less  turmoil,  less  dis- 
traction, fewer  sweeping  changes.  It  needs  to  settle 
itself,  and  look  around,  and  find  out  where  it  is  and 
what  it  is  trying  to  do.  And  it  needs,  above  all,  to  rise 
to  a  consciousness  of  itself  as  an  institution  manned 
by  intelligent  individuals  who  are  perfectly  competent 
themselves  to  set  up  craft  standard  and  ideals. 


92  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

IV 

But  in  whatever  way  the  supervisor  may  utilize  the 
opportunity  that  his  position  presents,  his  second  great 
problem  will  come  up  for  solution.  The  supervisor  is 
the  captain  of  the  teaching  corps.  Directly  under  his 
control  are  the  mainsprings  of  the  school's  Ufe  and 
activity,  —  the  classroom  teachers.  It  is  coming  to  be 
a  maxim  in  the  city  systems  that  the  supervisor  has 
not  only  the  power  to  mold  the  school  to  the  form  of 
his  own  ideals,  but  that  he  can,  if  he  is  skillful,  turn 
weak  teachers  into  strong  teachers  and  make  out  of 
most  unpromising  material,  an  efficient,  homogeneous 
school  staff.  I  believe  that  this  is  coming  to  be  con- 
sidered the  prime  criterion  of  effective  school  super- 
vision, —  not  what  skill  the  supervisor  may  show  in 
testing  results,  or  in  keeping  his  pupils  up  to  a  given 
standard,  or  in  choosing  his  teachers  skillfully,  but 
rather  the  success  with  which  he  is  able  to  take  the 
teaching  material  that  is  at  his  hand,  and  train  it  into 
efficiency. 

A  former  Commissioner  of  Education  for  one  of  our 
new  insular  possessions  once  told  me  that  he  had  come 
to  divide  supervisors  into  two  classes,  —  (i)  those  who 
knew  good  teaching  when  they  saw  it,  and  (2)  those 
who  could  make  poor  teachers  into  good  teachers.  Of 
these  two  types,  he  said,  the  latter  were  infinitely  more 
valuable  to  pioneer  work  in  education  than  the  former, 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       93 

and  he  named  two  or  three  city  systems  from  which  he 
had  selected  the  supervisors  who  could  do  this  sort  of 
thing,  —  for  there  is  no  limit  to  this  process  of  training, 
and  the  superintendent  who  can  train  supervisors  is 
just  as  important  as  the  supervisor  who  can  train 
teachers. 

It  would  take  a  volume  adequately  to  treat  the 
various  problems  that  this  conception  of  the  super- 
visor's function  involves.  I  can  do  no  more  at  present 
than  indicate  what  seems  to  me  the  most  pressing 
present  need  in  this  direction.  I  have  found  that 
sometimes  the  supervisors  who  insist  most  strenuously 
that  their  teachers  secure  the  cooperation  of  their  pupils 
are  among  the  very  last  to  secure  for  themselves  the 
cooperation  of  their  teachers. 

And  to  this  important  end,  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
have  an  important  suggestion  in  the  present  condition 
of  the  classroom  teacher  as  I  have  attempted  to  describe 
it.  As  a  type,  the  classroom  teacher  needs  just  now 
some  adequate  appreciation  and  recognition  of  the  work 
that  she  is  doing.  If  the  lay  pubUc  is  unable  adequately 
to  judge  the  teacher's  work,  there  is  all  the  more  reason 
that  she  should  look  to  her  supervisor  for  that  recog- 
nition of  technical  skill,  for  that  commendation  of  good 
work,  which  can  come  only  from  a  fellow-craftsman, 
but  which,  when  it  does  come,  is  worth  more  in  the 
way  of  real  inspiration  than  the  loudest  applause  of  the 
crowd. 


94  CRATTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

Upon  the  whole,  I  believe  that  the  outlook  m  this 
direction  is  encouraging.  While  the  teacher  may  miss 
in  her  institutes  and  in  the  summer  school  that  sort  of 
encouragement,  she  is,  I  believe,  finding  it  in  larger 
and  larger  measure  in  the  local  teachers'  meetings  and 
in  her  consultations  with  her  supervisors.  And  when 
all  has  been  said,  that  is  the  place  from  which  she  should 
look  for  inspiration.  The  teachers'  meeting  must  be 
the  nursery  of  professional  ideals.  It  must  be  a  place 
where  the  real  first-hand  workers  in  education  get  that 
sanity  of  outlook,  that  professional  point  of  view,  which 
shall  fortify  them  effectively  against  the  rising  tide 
of  unprofessional  interference  and  dictation  which,  as  I 
have  tried  to  indicate,  constitutes  the  most  serious 
menace  to  our  educational  welfare. 

And  it  is  in  the  encouragement  of  this  craft  spirit,  in 
this  lifting  of  the  teacher's  caUing  to  the  plane  of  craft 
consciousness,  it  is  in  this  that  the  supervisor  must,  I 
believe,  find  the  true  and  lasting  reward  for  his  work. 
It  is  through  this  factor  that  he  can,  just  now,  work  the 
greatest  good  for  the  schools  that  he  supervises  and  the 
community  that  he  serves.  The  most  effective  way  to 
reach  his  pupils  is  through  the  medium  of  their  teachers, 
and  he  can  help  these  pupils  in  no  better  way  than  to 
give  their  teachers  a  justifiable  pride  in  the  work  that 
they  are  doing  through  his  own  recognition  of  its  worth 
and  its  value,  through  his  own  respect  for  the  significance 
of  the  lessons  that  experience  teaches  them,  through  his 


THE  SUPERVISOR  AND  THE  TEACHER       95 

own  suggestive  help  in  making  that  experience  profit- 
able and  suggestive.  And  just  at  the  present  moment, 
he  can  make  no  better  start  than  by  assuring  them  of 
the  truth  that  Emerson  expresses  when  he  defines  the 
true  scholar  as  the  man  who  remains  firm  in  his  belief 
that  a  popgun  is  only  a  popgun  although  the  ancient 
and  honored  of  earth  may  solemnly  affirm  it  to  be  the 
crack  of  doom. 


VI 

Education  and  Utility^ 

I 

I  WISH  to  discuss  with  you  some  phases  of  the  prob- 
lem that  is  perhaps  foremost  in  the  minds  of  the  teach- 
ing public  to-day :  the  problem,  namely,  of  making  edu- 
cation bear  more  directly  and  more  efifectively  upon  the 
work  of  practical,  everyday  hfe.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  some  of  you  feel,  when  this  problem  is  suggested, 
very  much  as  I  felt  when  I  first  suggested  to  my- 
self the  possibility  of  discussing  it  with  you.  You 
have  doubtless  heard  some  phases  of  this  problem  dis- 
cussed at  every  meeting  of  this  association  for  the  past 
ten  years  —  if  you  have  been  a  member  so  long  as  that. 
Certain  it  is  that  we  all  grow  weary  of  the  reiteration 
of  even  the  best  of  truths,  but  certain  it  is  also  that 
some  problems  are  always  before  us,  and  until  they  are 
solved  satisfactorily  they  will  always  stimulate  men  to 
devise  means  for  their  solution. 

I  should  say  at  the  outset,  however,  that  I  shall  not 
attempt  to  justify  to  this  audience  the  introduction  of 

^  An  address  before  the  Eastern  Illinois  Teachers'  Association,  October 
IS,  1909.  Published  as  a  Bulletin  of  the  Eastern  Illinois  Normal  School, 
October,  1909. 

96 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  97 

vocational  subjects  into  the  elementary  and  secondary 
curriculums.  I  shall  take  it  for  granted  that  you  have 
already  made  up  your  minds  upon  this  matter.  I  shall 
not  take  your  time  in  an  attempt  to  persuade  you  that 
agriculture  ought  to  be  taught  in  the  rural  schools,  or 
manual  training  and  domestic  science  in  all  schools.  I 
am  personally  convinced  of  the  value  of  such  work  and 
I  shall  take  it  for  granted  that  you  are  likewise  con- 
vinced. 

My  task  to-day,  then,  is  of  another  type.  I  wish  to 
discuss  with  you  some  of  the  impUcations  of  this  matter 
of  utility  in  respect  of  the  work  that  every  elementary 
school  is  doing  and  always  must  do,  no  matter  how 
much  hand  work  or  vocational  material  it  may  intro- 
duce. My  problem,  in  other  words,  concerns  the  ordi- 
nary subject-matter  of  the  curriculum,  —  reading  and 
writing  and  arithmetic,  geography  and  grammar  and 
history,  —  those  things  which,  like  the  poor,  are  always 
with  us,  but  which  we  seem  a  Uttle  ashamed  to  talk 
about  in  pubhc.  Truly,  from  reading  the  educational 
journals  and  hearing  educational  discussion  to-day,  the 
layman  might  well  infer  that  what  we  term  the  "useful " 
education  and  the  education  that  is  now  offered  by  the 
average  school  are  as  far  apart  as  the  two  poles.  We 
are  all  famihar  with  the  statement  that  the  elementary 
curriculum  is  eminently  adapted  to  produce  clerks  and 
accountants,  but  very  poorly  adapted  to  furnish  re- 
cruits  for   any   other   department   of   life.     The   high 


98  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

school  is  criticized  on  the  ground  that  it  prepares  for 
college  and  consequently  for  the  professions,  but  that  it 
is  totally  inadequate  to  the  needs  of  the  average  citizen. 
Now  it  would  be  futile  to  deny  that  there  is  some  truth 
in  both  these  assertions,  but  I  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm 
that  both  are  grossly  exaggerated,  and  that  the  cur- 
riculum of  to-day,  with  all  its  imperfections,  does  not 
justify  so  sweeping  a  denunciation.  I  wish  to  point 
out  some  of  the  respects  in  which  these  charges  are 
fallacious,  and,  in  so  doing,  perhaps,  to  suggest  some 
possible  remedies  for  the  defects  that  every  one  will 
acknowledge. 

n 

In  the  first  place,  let  me  make  myself  perfectly  clear 
upon  what  I  mean  by  the  word  "useful."  What,  after 
all,  is  the  "useful"  study  in  our  schools?  What  do 
men  find  to  be  the  useful  thing  in  their  hves?  The 
most  natural  answer  to  this  question  is  that  the  useful 
things  are  those  that  enable  us  to  meet  effectively  the 
conditions  of  life,  —  or,  to  use  a  phrase  that  is  per- 
fectly clear  to  us  all,  the  things  that  help  us  in  getting 
a  living.  The  vast  majority  of  men  and  women  in  this 
world  measure  all  values  by  this  standard,  for  most  of 
us  are,  to  use  the  expressive  slang  of  the  day,  "up 
against"  this  problem,  and  "up  against"  it  so  hard 
and  so  constantly  that  we  interpret  everything  in  the 
greatly  foreshortened  perspective  of  immediate  neces- 
sity.   Most  of  us  in  this  room  are  confronting   this 


EDUCATION    AND   UTILITY  99 

problem  of  making  a  living.  At  any  rate,  I  am  con- 
fronting it,  and  consequently  I  may  lay  claim  to  some 
of  the  authority  that  comes  from  experience. 

And  since  I  have  made  this  personal  reference,  may 
I  violate  the  canons  of  good  taste  and  make  still  an- 
other ?  I  was  face  to  face  with  this  problem  of  getting 
a  living  a  good  many  years  ago,  when  the  opportimity 
came  to  me  to  take  a  college  course.  I  could  see  noth- 
ing ahead  after  that  except  another  struggle  with  this 
same  vital  issue.  So  I  decided  to  take  a  college  course 
which  would,  in  all  probabiUty,  help  me  to  solve  the 
problem.  Scientific  agriculture  was  not  developed  in 
those  days  as  it  has  been  since  that  time,  but  a  start 
had  been  made,  and  the  various  agricultural  colleges 
were  offering  what  seemed  to  be  very  practical  courses. 
I  had  had  some  early  experience  on  the  farm,  and  I 
decided  to  become  a  scientific  farmer.  I  took  the 
oourse  of  Jour^yeare  and  secured  my  degree.  The 
course  was  as  useful  from  the  standpoint  of  practical 
agriculture  as  any  that  could  have  been  devised  at  the 
time.  But  when  I  graduated,  what  did  I  find?  The 
same  old  problem  of  getting  a  living  still  confronted  me 
as  I  had  expected  that  it  would ;  and  alas !  I  had 
got  my  education  in  a  profession  that  demanded 
capital.  I  was  a  landless  farmer.  Times  were  hard 
and  work  of  all  kinds  was  very  scarce.  The  farmers  of 
those  days  were  inchned  to  scoff  at  scientific  agricidture. 
I  could  have  worked  for  my  board  and  a  little  more, 


lOO  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

and  I  should  have  done  so  had  I  been  able  to  find  a  job. 
But  while  I  was  looking  for  the  place,  a  chance  came 
to  teach  school,  and  I  took  the  opportunity  as  a  means 
of  keeping  the  wolf  from  the  door.  I  have  been  en- 
gaged in  the  work  of  teaching  ever  since.  When  I  was 
able  to  buy  land,  I  did  so,  and  I  have  to-day  a  farm  of 
which  I  am  very  proud.  It  does  not  pay  large  divi- 
dends, but  I  keep  it  up  for  the  fun  I  get  out  of  it,  — 
and  I  like  to  think,  also,  that  if  I  should  lose  my  job  as 
a  teacher,  I  could  go  back  to  the  farm  and  show  the 
natives  how  to  make  money.  This  is  doubtless  an 
illusion,  but  it  is  a  source  of  solid  comfort  just  the 
same. 

Now  the  point  of  this  experience  is  simply  this:  I 
secured  an  education  that  seemed  to  me  to  promise  the 
acme  of  utiHty.  In  one  way,  it  has  fulfilled  that  promise 
far  beyond  my  wildest  expectations,  but  that  way  was 
very  different  from  the  one  that  I  had  anticipated. 
The  technical  knowledge  that  I  gained  during  those 
four  strenuous  years,  I  apply  now  only  as  a  means  of 
recreation.  So  far  as  enabling  me  directly  to  get  a 
living,  this  technical  knowledge  does  not  pay  one  per 
cent  on  the  investment  of  time  and  money.  And  yet 
I  count  the  training  that  I  got  from  its  mastery  as, 
perhaps,  the  most  useful  product  of  my  education. 

Now  what  was  the  secret  of  its  utility  ?  As  I  analyze 
my  experience,  I  find  it  summed  up  very  largely  in  two 
factors.    In  the  first  place,  I  studied  a  set  of  subjects 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  lOI 

for  which  I  had  at  the  outset  very  little  taste.  In  study- 
ing agriculture,  I  had  to  master  a  certain  amount  of 
chemistry,  physics,  botany,  and  zoology,  for  each  and 
every  one  of  which  I  felt,  at  the  outset,  a  distinct  aver- 
sion and  dislike.  A  mastery  of  these  subjects  was 
essential  to  a  realization  of  the  purpose  that  I  had  in 
mind.  I  was  sure  that  I  should  never  like  them,  and 
yet,  as  I  kept  at  work,  I  gradually  found  myself  losing 
that  initial  distaste.  First  one  and  then  another  opened 
out  its  vista  of  truth  and  revelation  before  me,  and 
almost  before  I  was  aware  of  it,  I  was  enthusiastic 
over  science.  It  was  a  long  time  before  I  generalized 
that  experience  and  drew  its  lesson,  but  the  lesson,  once 
learned,  has  helped  me  more  even  in  the  specific  task 
of  getting  a  hving  than  anything  else  that  came  out  of 
my  school  training.  That  experience  taught  me,  not 
only  the  necessity  for  doing  disagreeable  tasks,  —  for 
attacking  them  hopefully  and  cheerfully,  —  but  it  also 
taught  me  that  disagreeable  tasks,  if  attacked  in  the 
right  way,  and  persisted  in  with  patience,  often  become 
attractive  in  themselves.  Over  and  over  again  in  meet- 
ing the  situations  of  real  Ufe,  I  have  been  confronted 
with  tasks  that  were  initially  distasteful.  Sometimes  I 
have  surrendered  before  them;  but  sometimes,  too, 
that  lesson  has  come  back  to  me,  and  has  inspired  me 
to  struggle  on,  and  at  no  time  has  it  disappointed  me 
by  the  outcome.  I  repeat  that  there  is  no  technical 
knowledge  that  I  have  gained   that  compares  for  a 


102  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

moment  with  that  ideal  of  patience  and  persistence. 
When  it  comes  to  real,  downright  utility,  measured  by 
this  inexorable  standard  of  getting  a  living,  let  me 
commend  to  you  the  ideal  of  persistent  effort.  All  the 
knowledge  that  we  can  leam  or  teach  will  come  to  very 
little  if  this  element  is  lacking. 

Now  this  is  very  far  from  saying  that  the  pursuit  of 
really  useful  knowledge  may  not  give  this  ideal  just  as 
effectively  as  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  that  will  never 
be  used.  My  point  is  simply  this:  that  beyond  the 
immediate  utiHty  of  the  facts  that  we  teach,  —  indeed, 
basic  and  fundamental  to  this  utility,  —  is  the  utility 
of  the  ideals  and  standards  that  are  derived  from  our 
school  work.  Whatever  we  teach,  these  essential  fac- 
tors can  be  made  to  stand  out  in  our  work,  and  if 
our  pupils  acquire  these  we  shall  have  done  the  basic 
and  important  thing  in  helping  them  to  solve  the  prob- 
lems of  real  Ufe,  —  and  if  our  pupils  do  not  acquire  these, 
it  will  make  little  difference  how  intrinsically  valuable 
may  be  the  content  of  our  instruction.  I  feel  like  em- 
phasizing this  matter  to-day,  because  there  is  in  the  air 
a  notion  that  utiUty  depends  entirely  upon  the  content 
of  the  curriculum.  Certainly  the  curriculum  must  be 
improved  from  this  standpoint,  but  we  are  just  now 
losing  sight  of  the  other  equally  important  factor,  — 
that,  after  all,  while  both  are  essential,  it  is  the  spirit  of 
teaching  rather  than  the  content  of  teaching  that  is 
basic  and  fimdamental. 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  IO3 

Nor  have  I  much  sympathy  with  that  extreme  view  of 
this  matter  which  asserts  that  we  must  go  out  of  our 
way  to  provide  distasteful  tasks  for  the  pupil  in  order 
to  develop  this  ideal  of  persistence.  I  beUeve  that  such 
a  policy  will  always  tend  to  defeat  its  own  purpose.  I 
know  a  teacher  who  holds  this  belief.  He  goes  out  of 
his  way  to  make  tasks  difficult.  He  refuses  to  help 
pupils  over  hard  places.  He  does  not  believe  in  careful 
assignments  of  lessons,  because,  he  maintains,  the  pupil 
ought  to  learn  to  overcome  difficulties  for  himself,  and 
how  can  he  learn  unless  real  difficulties  are  presented? 

The  great  trouble  with  this  teacher  is  that  his  policy 
does  not  work  out  in  practice.  A  small  minority  of  his 
pupils  are  strengthened  by  it ;  the  majority  are  weakened. 
He  is  right  when  he  says  that  a  pupil  gains  strength  only 
by  overcoming  difficulties,  but  he  neglects  a  very  impor- 
tant qualification  of  this  rule,  namely,  that  a  pupil  gains 
no  strength  out  of  obstacles  that  he  fails  to  overcome.  It 
is  the  conquest  that  comes  after  effort,  —  this  is  the 
factor  that  gives  one  strength  and  confidence.  But  when 
defeat  follows  defeat  and  failure  follows  failure,  it  is 
weakness  that  is  being  engendered  —  not  strength. 
And  that  is  the  trouble  with  this  teacher's  pupils.  The 
majority  leave  him  with  all  confidence  in  their  own  ability 
shaken  out  of  them  and  some  of  them  never  recover  from 
the  experience. 

And  so  while  I  insist  strenuously  that  the  most  useful 
lesson  we  can  teach  our  pupils  is  how  to  do  disagreeable 


I04  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

tasks  cheerfully  and  willingly,  please  do  not  understand 
me  to  mean  that  we  should  go  out  of  our  way  to  provide 
disagreeable  tasks.  After  all,  I  rejoice  that  my  own 
children  are  learning  how  to  read  and  write  and  cipher 
much  more  easily,  much  more  quickly,  and  withal  much 
more  pleasantly  than  I  learned  those  useful  arts.  The 
more  quickly  they  get  to  the  plane  that  their  elders  have 
reached,  the  more  quickly  they  can  get  beyond  this  plane 
and  on  to  the  next  level. 

To  argue  against  improved  methods  in  teaching  on  the 
ground  that  they  make  things  too  easy  for  the  pupil  is, 
to  my  mind,  a  grievous  error.  It  is  as  fallacious  as  to 
argue  that  the  introduction  of  machinery  is  a  curse  be- 
■  cause  it  has  diminished  in  some  measure  the  necessity 
for  human  drudgery.  But  if  machinery  left  mankind  to 
rest  upon  its  oars,  if  it  discouraged  further  progress  and 
further  effortful  achievement,  it  would  be  a  curse :  and  if 
the  easier  and  quicker  methods  of  instruction  simply 
bring  my  children  to  my  own  level  and  then  fail  to  stimu- 
late them  to  get  beyond  my  level,  then  they  are  a  curse 
and  not  a  blessing. 

I  do  not  decry  that  educational  policy  of  to-day 
which  insists  that  school  work  should  be  made  as  simple 
and  attractive  as  possible.  I  do  decry  that  misinter- 
pretation of  this  policy  which  looks  at  the  matter  from 
the  other  side,  and  asserts  so  vehemently  that  the  child 
should  never  be  asked  or  urged  to  do  something  that  is 
not  easy  and  attractive.    It  is  only  because  there  is  so 


EDUCATION    AND   UTILITY  10$ 

much  in  the  world  to  be  done  that,  for  the  sake  of 
economizing  time  and  strength,  we  should  raise  the  child 
as  quickly  and  as  rapidly  and  as  pleasantly  as  possible 
to  the  plane  that  the  race  has  reached.  But  among  all 
the  lessons  of  race  experience  that  we  must  teach  him 
there  is  none  so  fundamental  and  important  as  the  lesson 
of  achievement  itself,  —  the  supreme  lesson  wrung  from 
human  experience,  —  the  lesson,  namely,  that  every  ad- 
vance that  the  world  has  made,  every  step  that  it  has 
taken  forward,  every  increment  that  has  been  added  to 
the  sum  total  of  progress  has  been  attained  at  the  price  of 
self-sacrifice  and  effort  and  struggle,  —  at  the  price  of 
doing  things  that  one  does  not  want  to  do.  And  unless  a 
man  is  willing  to  pay  that  price,  he  is  bound  to  be  thd|P 
worst  kind  of  a  social  parasite,  for  he  is  simply  Uving  on 
the  experience  of  others,  and  adding  to  this  capital  noth- 
ing of  his  own. 

It  is  sometimes  said  that  universal  education  is  essen- 
tial in  order  that  the  great  mass  of  humanity  may  live  in 
greater  comfort  and  enjoy  the  luxuries  that  in  the  past 
have  been  vouchsafed  only  to  the  few.  Personally  I 
think  that  this  is  all  right  so  far  as  it  goes,  but  it  fails  to 
reach  an  ultimate  goal.  Material  comfort  is  justified 
only  because  it  enables  mankind  to  live  more  effectively 
on  the  lower  planes  of  life  and  give  greater  strength  and 
greater  energy  to  the  solution  of  new  problems  upon  the 
higher  planes  of  life.  The  end  of  life  can  never  be  ade- 
quately formulated  in  terms  of  comfort  and  ease,  noi 


Io6  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

even  in  terms  of  culture  and  intellectual  enjoyment; 
the  end  of  life  is  achievement,  and  no  matter  how  far  we 
go,  achievement  is  possible  only  to  those  who  are  willing 
to  pay  the  price.  When  the  race  stops  investing  its  capi- 
tal of  experience  in  further  achievement,  when  it  settles 
down  to  take  life  easily,  it  will  not  take  it  very  long  to 
eat  up  its  capital  and  revert  to  the  plane  of  the  brute. 

m 

But  I  am  getting  away  from  my  text.  You  will  remem- 
ber that  I  said  that  the  most  useful  thing  that  we  can 
teach  the  child  is  to  attack  strenuously  and  resolutely 
any  problem  that  confronts  him  whether  it  pleases  him 
iR)r  not,  and  I  wanted  to  be  certain  that  you  did  not  mis- 
interpret me  to  mean  that  we  should,  for  this  reason, 
make  our  school  tasks  unnecessarily  difficult  and  labori- 
ous. After  all,  while  our  attitude  should  always  be  one 
of  interesting  our  pupils,  their  attitude  should  always  be 
one  of  effortful  attention,  —  of  willingness  to  do  the  task 
that  we  think  it  best  for  them  to  do.  You  see  it  is  a  sort 
of  a  double-headed  policy,  and  how  to  carry  it  out  is  a 
perplexing  problem.  Of  so  much  I  am  certain,  however, 
at  the  outset:  if  the  pupil  takes  the  attitude  that  we  are 
there  to  interest  and  entertain  him,  we  shall  make  a  sorry 
fiasco  of  the  whole  matter,  and  inasmuch  as  this  very 
tendency  is  in  the  air  at  the  present  time,  I  feel  justified 
in  at  least  referring  to  its  danger. 

Now  if  this  ideal  of  persistent  effort  is  the  most  useful 


EDUCATION  AND   UTILITY  107 

thing  that  can  come  out  of  education,  what  is  the  next 
most  useful  ?  Again,  as  I  analyze  what  I  obtained  from 
my  own  education,  it  seems  to  me  that,  next  to  learning 
that  disagreeable  tasks  are  often  well  worth  doing,  the 
factor  that  has  helped  me  most  in  getting  a  living  has 
been  the  method  of  solving  the  situations  that  confronted 
me.  After  all,  if  we  simply  have  the  ideal  of  resolute  and 
aggressive  and  persistent  attack,  we  may  struggle  indefi- 
nitely without  much  result.  All  problems  of  life  involve 
certain  common  factors.  The  essential  difference  be- 
tween the  educated  and  the  uneducated  man,  if  we 
grant  each  an  equal  measure  of  pluck,  persistence,  and 
endurance,  lies  in  the  superior  ability  of  the  educated 
man  to  analyze  his  problem  effectively  and  to  proceedl^ 
intelligently  rather  than  blindly  to  its  solution.  I 
maintain  that  education  should  give  a  man  this  ideal 
of  attacking  any  problem ;  furthermore  I  maintain  that 
the  education  of  the  present  day,  in  spite  of  the 
anathemas  that  are  hurled  against  it,  is  doing  this  in 
richer  measure  than  it  has  ever  been  done  before.  But 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  do  it  in  still 
greater  measure. 

I  once  knew  two  men  who  were  in  the  business  of  raising 
fruit  for  commercial  purposes.  Each  had  a  large  orchard 
which  he  operated  according  to  conventional  methods 
and  which  netted  him  a  comfortable  income.  One  of 
these  men  was  a  man  of  narrow  education :  the  other  a 
man  of  Uberal  education,  although  his  training  had  not 


I08  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

been  directed  in  any  way  toward  the  problems  of  horti- 
culture. The  orchards  had  borne  exceptionally  well  for 
several  years,  but  one  season,  when  the  fruit  looked 
especially  promising,  a  period  of  wet,  muggy  weather 
came  along  just  before  the  picking  season,  and  one  morn- 
ing both  these  men  went  out  into  their  orchards,  to  find 
the  fruit  very  badly  "specked."  Now  the  conventional 
thing  to  do  in  such  cases  was  well  known  to  both  men. 
Each  had  picked  up  a  good  deal  of  technical  information 
about  caring  for  fruit,  and  each  did  the  same  thing  in 
meeting  this  situation.  He  got  out  his  spraying  outfit, 
prepared  some  Bordeaux  mixture,  and  set  vigorously  at 
work  with  his  pimips.  So  far  as  persistence  and  enter- 
-^  prise  went,  both  men  stood  on  an  equal  footing.  But  it 
happened  that  this  was  an  unusual  and  not  a  conventional 
situation.  The  spraying  did  not  alleviate  the  condition. 
The  corruption  spread  through  the  trees  like  wildfire, 
and  seemed  to  thrive  on  copper  sulphate  rather  than  suc- 
cumb to  its  corrosive  influence. 

Now  this  was  where  the  difference  in  training  showed 
itself.  The  orchardist  who  worked  by  rule  of  thumb, 
when  he  found  that  his  rule  did  not  work,  gave  up  the 
fight  and  spent  his  time  sitting  on  his  front  porch  be- 
moaning his  luck.  The  other  set  diligently  at  work  to 
analyze  the  situation.  His  education  had  not  taught  him 
anything  about  the  characteristics  of  parasitic  fungi,  for 
parasitic  fungi  were  not  very  well  understood  when  he  was 
in  school.    But  his  education  had  left  with  him  a  general 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  IO9 

method  of  procedure  for  just  such  cases,  and  that  method 
he  at  once  applied.  It  had  taught  him  how  to  find  the 
information  that  he  needed,  provided  that  such  informa- 
tion was  available.  It  had  taught  him  that  human  experi- 
ence is  crystallized  in  books,  and  that,  when  a  discovery  is 
made  in  any  field  of  science,  —  no  matter  how  specialized 
the  field  and  no  matter  how  trivial  the  finding,  —  the  dis- 
covery is  recorded  in  printer's  ink  and  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  those  who  have  the  inteUigence  to  find  it  and  apply 
it.  And  so  he  set  out  to  read  up  on  the  subject,  —  to 
see  what  other  men  had  learned  about  this  peculiar  kind 
of  apple  rot.  He  obtained  all  that  had  been  written 
about  it  and  began  to  master  it.  He  told  his  friend  about 
this  material  and  suggested  that  the  latter  follow  the 
same  course,  but  the  man  of  narrow  education  soon  found 
himself  utterly  at  sea  in  a  maze  of  technical  terms.  The 
terms  were  new  to  the  other  too,  but  he  took  down  his 
dictionary  and  worked  them  out.  He  knew  how  to  use 
indices  and  tables  of  contents  and  various  other  devices 
that  facilitate  the  gathering  of  information,  and  while  his 
uneducated  friend  was  storming  over  the  pedantry  of 
men  who  use  big  words,  the  other  was  making  rapid  prog- 
ress through  the  material.  In  a  short  time  he  learned 
everything  that  had  been  found  out  about  this  specific 
disease.  He  learned  that  its  spores  are  encased  in  a  ge- 
latinous sac  which  resisted  the  entrance  of  the  chemicals. 
He  found  how  the  spores  were  reproduced,  how  they 
wintered,  how  they  germinated  in  the  following  season ; 


no  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

and,  although  he  did  not  save  much  of  his  crop  that  year, 
he  did  better  the  next.  Nor  were  the  evidences  of  his 
superiority  limited  to  this  very  useful  result.  He  found 
that,  after  all,  very  little  was  known  about  this  disease, 
so  he  set  himself  to  find  out  more  about  it.  To  do  this, 
he  started  where  other  investigators  had  left  off,  and  then 
he  applied  a  principle  he  had  learned  from  his  education; 
namely,  that  the  only  valid  methods  of  obtaining  new 
truths  are  the  methods  of  close  observation  and  con- 
trolled experiment. 

Now  I  maintain  that  the  education  which  was  given 
that  man  was  effective  in  a  degree  that  ought  to  make  his 
experience  an  object  lesson  for  us  who  teach.  What  he 
had  found  most  useful  at  a  very  critical  juncture  of  his 
business  life  was,  primarily,  not  the  technical  knowledge 
that  he  had  gained  either  in  school  or  in  actual  experience. 
His  superiority  lay  in  the  fact  that  he  knew  how  to  get 
hold  of  knowledge  when  he  needed  it,  how  to  master  it 
once  he  had  obtained  it,  how  to  apply  it  once  he  had 
mastered  it,  and  finally  how  to  go  about  to  discover  facts 
that  had  been  undetected  by  previous  investigators.  I 
care  not  whether  he  got  this  knowledge  in  the  elementary 
school  or  in  the  high  school  or  in  the  college.  He  might 
have  secured  it  in  anyone  of  the  three  types  of  institution, 
but  he  had  to  learn  it  somewhere,  and  I  shall  go  further 
and  say  that  the  average  man  has  to  learn  it  in  some 
school  and  imder  an  explicit  and  conscious  method  of  in- 
struction. 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  III 

IV 

But  perhaps  you  would  maintain  that  this  statement  of 
the  case,  while  in  general  true,  does  not  help  us  out  in 
practice.  After  all,  how  are  we  to  impress  pupils  with  this 
ideal  of  persistence  and  with  these  ideals  of  getting  and 
applying  information,  and  with  this  ideal  of  investiga- 
tion ?  I  maintain  that  these  important  useful  ideals 
may  be  efifectively  impressed  almost  from  the  very  outset 
of  school  life.  The  teaching  of  every  subject  affords  in- 
numerable opportunities  to  force  home  their  lessons.  In 
fact,  it  must  be  a  very  gradual  process  —  a  process  in 
which  the  concrete  instances  are  numerous  and  rich  and 
impressive.  From  these  concrete  instances,  the  general 
truth  may  in  time  emerge.  Certainly  the  chances  that 
it  will  emerge  are  greatly  multiplied  if  we  ourselves 
recognize  its  worth  and  importance,  and  lead  our  pupils 
to  see  in  each  concrete  case  the  operation  of  the  general 
principle.  After  all,  the  chief  reason  why  so  much  of  our 
education  miscarries,  why  so  few  pupils  gain  the  strength 
and  the  power  that  we  expect  all  to  gain,  Hes  in  the  in- 
a^ility  of  the  average  individual  to  draw  a  general  con- 
clusion from  concrete  cases  —  to  see  the  general  in  the 
particular.  We  have  insisted  so  strenuously  upon  con- 
crete instruction  that  we  have  perhaps  failed  also  to 
insist  that  fact  without  law  is  bhnd,  and  that  observation 
without  induction  is  stupidity  gone  to  seed. 

Let  me  give  a  concrete  instance  of  what  I  mean.    Not 


112  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

long  ago,  I  visited  an  eighth-grade  class  during  a  geog- 
raphy period.  It  was  at  the  time  when  the  discovery  of 
the  Pole  had  just  set  the  whole  civilized  world  by  the  ears, 
and  the  teacher  was  doing  something  that  many  good 
teachers  do  on  occasions  of  this  sort :  she  was  turning  the 
vivid  interest  of  the  moment  to  educative  purposes. 
The  pupils  had  read  Peary's  account  of  his  trip  and  they 
were  discussing  its  details  in  class.  Now  that  exercise 
was  vastly  more  than  an  interesting  information  lesson, 
for  Peary's  achievement  became,  under  the  skillful  touch 
of  that  teacher,  a  type  of  all  human  achievement.  I  wish 
that  I  could  reproduce  that  lesson  for  you  —  how  vividly 
she  pictured  the  situation  that  confronted  the  explorer,  — 
the  bitter  cold,  the  shifting  ice,  the  treacherous  open  leads, 
the  lack  of  game  or  other  sources  of  food  supply,  the  long 
marches  on  scant  rations,  the  short  hours  and  the  un- 
comfortable conditions  of  sleep ;  and  how  from  these 
that  fundamental  lesson  of  pluck  and  endurance  and 
courage  came  forth  naturally  without  preaching  the  moral 
or  indulging  in  sentimental  "goody-goodyism."  And 
then  the  other  and  equally  important  part  of  the  lesson, 
—  how  pluck  and  courage  in  themselves  could  never  have 
solved  the  problem;  how  knowledge  was  essential,  and 
how  that  knowledge  had  been  gained :  some  of  it  from  the 
experience  of  early  explorers,  —  how  to  avoid  the  dreaded 
scurvy,  how  to  build  a  ship  that  could  withstand  the  tre- 
mendous pressure  of  the  floes ;  and  some  from  the  Eski- 
mos, —  how  to  live  in  that  barren  region,  and  how  to 


EDUCATION   AND    UTILITY  II3 

travel  with  dogs  and  sledges ;  —  and  some,  too,  from 
Peary's  own  early  experiences,  —  how  he  had  struggled 
for  twenty  years  to  reach  the  goal,  and  had  added  this 
experience  to  that  until  finally  the  prize  was  his.  We 
may  differ  as  to  the  value  of  Peary's  deed,  but  that  it 
staads  as  a  type  of  what  success  in  any  undertaking 
mfiaaia,  no  one  can  deny.  And  this  was  the  lesson  that 
these  eighth-grade  pupils  were  absorbing,  —  the  world-old 
lesson  before  which  all  others  fade  into  insignificance,  — 
the  lesson,  namely,  that  achievement  can  be  gained  only 
by  those  who  are  wilhng  to  pay  the  price. 

And  I  imagine  that  when  that  class  is  studying  the  con- 
tinent of  Africa  in  their  geography  work,  they  will  learn 
something  more  than  the  names  of  rivers  and  mountains 
and  boundaries  and  products,  —  I  imagine  that  they  will 
link  these  facts  with  the  names  and  deeds  of  the  men  who 
gave  them  to  the  world.  And  when  they  study  history, 
it  will  be  vastly  more  than  a  bare  recital  of  dates  and 
events,  —  it  will  be  alive  with  these  great  lessons  of 
struggle  and  triumph,  —  for  history,  after  all,  is  only  the 
record  of  human  achievement.  And  if  those  pupils  do  not 
find  these  same  lessons  coming  out  of  their  own  little  con- 
quests, —  if  the  problems  of  arithmetic  do  not  furnish  an 
opportunity  to  conquer  the  pressure  ridges  of  partial 
payments  or  the  Polar  night  of  bank  discount,  or  if  the  in- 
tricacies of  formal  grammar  do  not  resolve  themselves 
into  the  North  Pole  of  correct  expression,  —  I  have  mis- 
judged that  teacher's  capacities ;  for  the  great  triumph 


114  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

of  teaching  is  to  get  our  pupils  to  see  the  fundamental 
and  the  eternal  in  things  that  are  seemingly  trivial  and 
transitory.  We  are  fond  of  dividing  school  studies  into 
the  cultural  and  the  practical,  into  the  humanities  and 
the  sciences.  Believe  me,  there  is  no  study  worth  the 
teaching  that  is  not  practical  at  basis,  and  there  is  no 
practical  study  that  has  not  its  hvunan  interest  and  its 
humanizing  influence  —  if  only  we  go  to  some  pains  to 
search  them  out. 

V 

I  have  said  that  the  most  useful  thing  that  education 
can  do  is  to  imbue  the  pupil  with  the  ideal  of  effortful 
achievement  which  will  lead  him  to  do  cheerfully  and 
effectively  the  disagreeable  tasks  that  fall  to  his  lot. 
I  have  said  that  the  next  most  useful  thing  that  it  can  do 
is  to  give  him  a  general  method  of  solving  the  problems 
that  he  meets.  Is  there  any  other  useful  outcome  of  a 
general  nature  that  we  may  rank  in  importance  with  these 
two  ?  I  believe  that  there  is,  and  I  can  perhaps  tell  you 
what  I  mean  by  another  reference  to  a  concrete  case. 
I  know  a  man  who  lacks  this  third  factor,  although  he 
possesses  the  other  two  in  a  very  generous  measure.  He 
is  full  of  ambition,  persistence,  and  courage.  He  is 
master  of  the  rational  method  of  solving  the  problems 
that  beset  him.  He  does  his  work  intelligently  and 
effectively.  And  yet  he  has  failed  to  make  a  good  living. 
Why?  Simply  because  of  his  standard  of  what  consti- 
tutes a  good  living.     Measured  by  my  standard,  he  is 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  II5 

doing  excellently  well.  Measured  by  his  own  standard, 
he  is  a  miserable  failure.  He  is  depressed  and  gloomy 
and  out  of  harmony  with  the  world,  simply  because  he 
has  no  other  standard  for  a  good  living  than  a  financial 
one.  He  is  by  profession  a  civil  engineer.  His  work 
is  much  more  remunerative  than  is  that  of  many  other 
callings.  He  has  it  in  him  to  attain  to  professional  dis- 
tinction in  that  work.  But  to  this  opportunity  he  is 
blind.  In  the  great  industrial  center  in  which  he  works, 
he  is  constantly  irritated  by  the  evidences  of  wealth  and 
luxury  beyond  what  he  himself  enjoys.  The  millionaire 
captain  of  industry  is  his  hero,  and  because  he  is  not 
numbered  among  this  class,  he  looks  at  the  world  through 
the  bluest  kind  of  spectacles. 

Now,  to  my  mind  that  man's  education  failed  some- 
where, and  its  failure  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  did  not 
develop  in  him  ideals  of  success  that  would  have  made 
him  immune  to  these  irritating  factors.  We  have  often 
heard  it  said  that  education  should  rid  the  mind  of  the 
incubus  of  superstition,  and  one  very  important  effect  of 
universal  education  is  that  it  does  offer  to  all  men  an 
explanation  of  the  phenomena  that  formerly  weighted 
down  the  mind  with  fear  and  dread,  and  opened  an  easy 
ingress  to  the  forces  of  superstition  and  fraud  and  error. 
Education  has  accomplished  this  function,  I  think,  pas- 
sably well  with  respect  to  the  more  obvious  sources  of 
superstition.  Necromancy  and  magic,  demonism  and 
witchcraft,  have  long  since  been  relegated  to  the  limbo  of 


Il6  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

exposed  fraud.  Their  conquest  has  been  one  of  the  most 
significant  advances  that  man  has  made  above  the 
savage.  The  truths  of  science  have  at  last  triumphed, 
and,  as  education  has  diffused  these  truths  among  the 
masses,  the  triumph  has  become  almost  universal. 

But  there  are  other  forms  of  superstition  besides  those 
I  have  mentioned,  —  other  instances  of  a  false  perspec- 
tive, of  distorted  values,  of  inadequate  standards.  If 
belief  in  witchcraft  or  in  magic  is  bad  because  it  falls 
short  of  an  adequate  interpretation  of  nature,  —  if  it  is 
false  because  it  is  inconsistent  with  hvrnian  experience,  — 
then  the  worship  of  Mammon  that  my  engineer  friend 
represents  is  tenfold  worse  than  witchcraft,  measured  by 
the  same  standards.  If  there  is  any  lesson  that  human 
history  teaches  with  compelling  force,  it  is  surely  this : 
Every  race  which  has  yielded  to  the  demon  of  individual- 
ism and  the  lust  for  gold  and  self-gratification  has  gone 
down  the  swift  and  certain  road  to  national  decay. 
Every  race  that,  through  unusual  material  prosperity, 
has  lost  its  grip  on  the  eternal  verities  of  self-sacrifice 
and  self-denial  has  left  the  lesson  of  its  downfall  written 
large  upon  the  pages  of  history.  I  repeat  that  if  super- 
stition consists  in  believing  something  that  is  incon- 
sistent with  rational  human  experience,  then  our  present 
worship  of  the  golden  calf  is  by  far  the  most  dangerous 
form  of  superstition  that  has  ever  befuddled  the  hvmian 
intellect. 

But,  you  ask,  what  can  education  do  to  alleviate  a 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  117 

condition  of  this  sort  ?  How  may  the  weak  influence  of 
the  school  make  itself  felt  in  an  environment  that  has 
crystallized  on  every  hand  this  unfortunate  standard? 
Individualism  is  in  the  air.  It  is  the  dominant  spirit 
of  the  times.  It  is  reenforced  upon  every  side  by  the 
unmistakable  evidences  of  national  prosperity.  It  is  easy 
to  preach  the  simple  life,  but  who  will  Uve  it  unless  he 
has  to  ?  It  is  easy  to  say  that  man  should  have  social 
and  not  individual  standards  of  success  and  achieve- 
ment, but  what  effect  will  your  puerile  assertion  have 
upon  the  situation  that  confronts  us  ? 

Yes ;  it  is  easier  to  be  a  pessimist  than  an  optimist.  It 
is  far  easier  to  lie  back  and  let  things  run  their  course  than 
it  is  to  strike  out  into  midstream  and  make  what  must  be 
for  the  pioneer  a  fatal  effort  to  stem  the  current.  But  is 
the  situation  absolutely  hopeless  ?  If  the  forces  of  educa- 
tion can  lift  the  Japanese  people  from  barbarism  to  en- 
lightenment in  two  generations;  if  education  can  in  a 
single  century  transform  Germany  from  the  weakest  to 
the  strongest  power  on  the  continent  of  Europe ;  if  five 
short  years  of  a  certain  type  of  education  can  change  the 
course  of  destiny  in  China ;  —  are  we  warranted  in  our 
assumption  that  we  hold  a  weak  weapon  in  this  fight 
against  Mammon? 

I  have  intimated  that  the  attitude  of  my  engineer 
friend  toward  Ufe  is  the  result  of  twisted  ideals.  A  good 
many  young  men  are  going  out  into  life  with  a  similar 
defect  in  their  education.    They  gain  their  ideals,  not 


Il8  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

from  the  great  wellsprings  of  human  experience  as 
represented  in  history  and  literature,  in  religion  and  art, 
but  from  the  environment  around  them,  and  consequently 
they  become  victims  of  this  superstition  from  the  outset. 
As  a  trainer  of  teachers,  I  hold  it  to  be  one  important  part 
of  my  duty  to  fortify  my  students  as  strongly  as  I  can 
against  this  false  standard  of  which  my  engineer  friend  is 
the  victim.  It  is  just  as  much  a  part  of  my  duty  to  give 
my  students  effective  and  consistent  standards  of  what  a 
good  living  consists  in  as  it  is  to  give  them  the  technical 
knowledge  and  skill  that  will  enable  them  to  make  a  good 
hving.  If  my  students  who  are  to  become  teachers  have 
standards  of  hving  and  standards  of  success  that  are 
inconsistent  with  the  great  ideal  of  social  service  for  which 
teaching  stands,  then  I  have  fallen  far  short  of  success 
in  my  work.  If  they  are  constantly  irritated  by  the  evi- 
dences of  luxury  beyond  their  means,  if  this  irritation 
sours  their  dispositions  and  checks  their  spontaneity,  their 
eflSciency  as  teachers  is  greatly  lessened  or  perhaps  en- 
tirely negated.  And  if  my  engineer  friend  places  worldly 
emoluments  upon  a  higher  plane  than  professional  effi- 
ciency, I  dread  for  the  safety  of  the  bridges  that  he  builds. 
His  education  as  an  engineer  should  have  fortified  him 
against  just  such  a  contingency.  It  should  have  left 
him  with  the  ideal  of  craftsmanship  supreme  in  his  hfe. 
And  if  his  technical  education  failed  to  do  this,  his  general 
education  ought,  at  least,  to  have  given  him  a  bias  in  the 
right  direction. 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  II9 

I  believe  that  all  forms  of  vocational  and  professional 
education  are  not  so  strong  in  this  respect  as  they  should 
be.  Again  you  say  to  me,  What  can  education  do 
when  the  spirit  of  the  times  speaks  so  strongly  on  the 
other  side  ?  But  what  is  education  for  if  it  is  not  to  pre- 
serve midst  the  chaos  and  confusion  of  troublous  times  the 
great  truths  that  the  race  has  wrung  from  its  experience  ? 
How  different  might  have  been  the  fate  of  Rome,  if  Rome 
had  possessed  an  educational  system  touching  every  child 
in  the  Empire,  and  if,  during  the  years  that  witnessed  her 
decay  and  downfall,  those  schools  could  have  kept  steadily, 
persistently  at  work,  impressing  upon  every  member  of 
each  successive  generation  the  virtues  that  made  the 
old  Romans  strong  and  virile  —  the  virtues  that  enabled 
them  to  lay  the  foundations  of  an  empire  that  crumbled 
in  ruins  once  these  truths  were  forgotten.  Is  it  not  the 
specific  task  of  education  to  represent  in  each  generation 
the  human  experiences  that  have  been  tried  and  tested 
and  found  to  work,  —  to  represent  these  in  the  face  of 
opposition  if  need  be,  —  to  be  faithful  to  the  trusteeship 
of  the  most  priceless  legacy  that  the  past  has  left  to  the 
present  and  to  the  future  ?  If  this  is  not  our  function  in 
the  scheme  of  things,  then  what  is  our  function  ?  Is  it  to 
stand  with  bated  breath  to  catch  the  first  whisper  that  will 
usher  in  the  next  change  ?  Is  it  to  surrender  all  initiative 
and  simply  allow  ourselves  to  be  tossed  hither  and  yon  by 
the  waves  and  cross-waves  of  a  fickle  public  opinion? 
Is  it  to  cower  in  dread  of  a  criticism  that  is  not  only  unjust 


120  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

but  often  ill-advised  of  the  real  conditions  under  which  we 
are  doing  our  work  ? 

I  take  it  that  none  of  us  is  ready  to  answer  these  ques- 
tions in  the  affirmative.  Deep  down  in  our  hearts  we 
know  that  we  have  a  useful  work  to  do,  and  we  know  that 
we  are  doing  it  passably  well.  We  also  know  our  defects 
and  shortcomings  at  least  as  well  as  one  who  has  never 
faced  our  problems  and  tried  to  solve  them.  And  it  is 
from  this  latter  type  that  most  of  the  drastic  criticism, 
especially  of  the  elementary  and  secondary  school,  ema- 
nates. I  confess  that  my  gorge  rises  within  me  when  I 
read  or  hear  the  invectives  that  are  being  hurled  against 
teaching  as  a  profession  (and  against  the  work  of  the 
elementary  and  secondary  school  in  particular)  by  men 
who  know  nothing  of  this  work  at  first  hand.  This  is 
the  greatest  handicap  under  which  the  profession  of  teach- 
ing labors.  In  every  other  important  field  of  human  ac- 
tivity a  man  must  present  his  credentials  before  he  takes 
his  seat  at  the  council  table,  and  even  then  he  must  sit 
and  listen  respectfully  to  his  elders  for  a  while  before  he 
ventures  a  criticism  or  even  a  suggestion.  This  plan  may 
have  its  defects.  It  may  keep  things  on  too  conserv- 
ative a  basis ;  but  it  avoids  the  danger  into  which  we  as 
a  profession  have  fallen,  —  the  danger  of  "half-baked" 
theories  and  unmatured  policies.  To-day  the  only  man 
that  can  get  a  respectable  hearing  at  our  great  national 
educational  meetings  is  the  man  who  has  something  new 
and  bizarre  to  propose.    And  the  more  startling  the  pro- 


EDUCATION   AND   UTILITY  121 

posal,  the  greater  is  the  measure  of  adulation  that  he 
receives.  The  result  of  this  is  a  continual  straining  for 
effect,  an  enormous  annual  crop  of  fads  and  fancies, 
which,  though  most  of  them  are  happily  short-lived,  keep 
us  in  a  state  of  continual  turmoil  and  confusion. 

Now,  it  goes  without  saying  that  there  are  many  ways 
of  making  education  hit  the  mark  of  utility  in  addition  to 
those  that  I  have  mentioned.  The  teachers  down  in  the 
lower  grades  who  are  teaching  little  children  the  arts  of 
reading  and  writing  and  computation  are  doing  vastly 
more  in  a  practical  direction  than  they  are  ever  given 
credit  for  doing ;  for  reading  and  writing  and  the  manipu- 
lation of  numbers  are,  next  to  oral  speech  itself,  the  prime 
necessities  in  the  social  and  industrial  world.  These  arts 
are  being  taught  to-day  better  than  they  have  ever  been 
taught  before,  —  and  the  technique  of  their  teaching  is 
undergoing  constant  refinement  and  improvement. 

The  school  can  do  and  is  doing  other  useful  things. 
Some  schools  are  training  their  pupils  to  be  well  mannered 
and  courteous  and  considerate  of  the  rights  of  others. 
They  are  teaching  children  one  of  the  most  basic  and 
fundamental  laws  of  himian  life;  namely,  that  there 
are  some  things  that  a  gentleman  cannot  do  and  some 
things  that  society  will  not  stand.  How  many  a  painful 
experience  in  solving  this  very  problem  of  getting  a  living 
could  be  avoided  if  one  had  only  learned  this  lesson  pass- 
ing well !    What  a  pity  it  is  that  some  schools  that  stand 


122  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

to-day  for  what  we  call  educational  progress  are  failing  in 
just  this  particular  —  are  sending  out  into  the  world  an 
annual  crop  of  boys  and  girls  who  must  learn  the  great 
lesson  of  self-control  and  a  proper  respect  for  the  rights  of 
others  in  the  bitter  school  of  experience,  —  a  school  in 
which  the  rod  will  never  be  spared,  but  whose  chasten- 
ing scourge  comes  sometimes,  alas,  too  late  ! 

There  is  no  feature  of  school  life  which  has  not  its 
almost  infinite  possibilities  of  utiUty.  But  after  all,  are 
not  the  basic  and  fundamental  things  these  ideals  that  I 
have  named?  And  should  not  we  who  teach  stand  for 
idealism  in  its  widest  sense?  Should  we  not  ourselves 
subscribe  an  undying  fideUty  to  those  great  ideals  for 
which  teaching  must  stand,  —  to  the  ideal  of  social  serv- 
ice which  lies  at  the  basis  of  our  craft,  to  the  ideals 
of  effort  and  discipline  that  make  a  nation  great  and  its 
children  strong,  to  the  ideal  of  science  that  dissipates  the 
black  night  of  ignorance  and  superstition,  to  the  ideal  of 
culture  that  humanizes  mankind  ? 


vn 

The  Scientific  Spirit  in  Education^ 


I  know  that  I  do  not  need  to  plead  with  this  audience 
for  a  recognition  of  the  scientific  spirit  in  the  solution 
of  educational  problems.  The  long  life  and  the  en- 
viable record  of  this  Society  of  Pedagogy  testify  in 
themselves  to  that  spirit  of  free  inquiry,  to  the  calm 
and  dispassionate  search  for  the  truth  which  lies  at 
the  basis  of  the  scientific  method.  You  have  gathered 
here,  fortnight  after  fortnight,  to  discuss  educational 
problems  in  the  light  of  your  experience.  You  have 
reported  your  experience  and  listened  to  the  results 
that  others  have  gleaned  in  the  course  of  their  daily 
work.     And  experience  is  the  corner  stone  of  science. 

Some  of  the  most  stimulating  and  clarifying  discus- 
sions of  educational  problems  that  I  have  ever  heard  have 
been  made  in  the  sessions  of  this  Society.  You  have 
been  scientific  in  your  attitude  toward  education,  and 
I  may  add  that  I  first  learned  the  lessons  of  the  real 
science  of  education  in  the  St.  Louis  schools,  and  under 
the  inspiration  that  was  furnished  by  the   men  who 

*  An  address  delivered  before  the  St.  Louis  Society  of  Pedagogy,  April 
16,  1910, 

"3 


124  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

were  members  of  this  Society.  What  I  knew  of  the 
science  of  education  before  I  came  to  this  city  ten  years 
ago,  was  gleaned  largely  from  books.  It  was  deductive, 
a  priori,  in  its  nature.  What  I  learned  here  was  the 
induction  from  actual  experience. 

My  very  first  introduction  to  my  colleagues  among 
the  school  men  of  this  city  was  a  lesson  in  the  science  of 
education.  I  had  brought  with  me  a  letter  to  one  of 
your  principals.  He  was  in  the  office  down  on  Locust 
Street  the  first  Saturday  that  I  spent  in  the  city.  I 
presented  my  letter  to  him,  and,  with  that  true  Southern 
hospitality  which  has  always  characterized  your  corps, 
he  took  me  immediately  under  his  wing  and  carried  me 
out  to  luncheon  with  him. 

We  sat  for  hours  in  a  little  restaurant  down  on  Sixth 
Street,  —  he  was  my  teacher  and  I  was  his  pupil.  And 
gradually,  as  the  afternoon  wore  on,  I  realized  that  I 
had  met  a  master  craftsman  in  the  art  of  education. 
At  first  I  talked  glibly  enough  of  what  I  intended  to  do, 
and  he  listened  sympathetically  and  helpfully,  with  a 
little  quizzical  smile  in  his  eyes  as  I  outlined  my  am- 
bitious plans.  And  when  I  had  run  the  gamut  of  my 
dreams,  he  took  his  turn,  and,  in  true  Socratic  fashion, 
yet  without  making  me  feel  in  the  least  that  I  was 
only  a  dreamer  after  all,  he  refashioned  my  theories. 
One  by  one  the  Httle  card  houses  that  I  had  built  up 
were  deftly,  smoothly,  gently,  but  completely  demolished. 
I  did  not  know  the  A  B  C  of  schoolcraft  —  but  he  did 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT   IN  EDUCATION  1 25 

not  tell  me  that  I  did  not.  He  went  at  the  task  of 
instruction  from  the  positive  point  of  view.  He  proved 
to  me,  by  reminiscence  and  example,  how  different  are 
actual  and  ideal  conditions.  And  finally  he  wound  up 
with  a  single  question  that  opened  a  new  world  to  me. 
"What,"  he  asked,  "is  the  dominant  characteristic  of 
the  child's  mind?"  I  thought  at  first  that  I  was  on 
safe  ground  —  for  had  I  not  taken  a  course  in  child 
study,  and  had  I  not  measured  some  hundreds  of  school 
children  while  working  out  a  university  thesis?  So  I 
began  with  my  list.  But,  at  each  characteristic  that  I 
mentioned  he  shook  his  head.  "No,"  he  said,  "no; 
that  is  not  right."  And  when  finally  I  had  exhausted 
my  list,  he  said  to  me,  "The  dominant  characteristic  of 
the  child's  mind  is  its  seriousness.  The  child  is  the  most 
serious  creature  in  the  world." 

The  answer  staggered  me  for  a  moment.  Like  ninety- 
nine  per  cent  of  the  adult  population  of  this  globe,  the 
seriousness  of  the  child  had  never  appealed  to  me.  In 
spite  of  the  theoretical  basis  of  my  training,  that  single, 
dominant  element  of  child  life  had  escaped  me.  I  had 
gained  my  notion  of  the  child  from  books,  and,  I  also  fear, 
from  the  Sunday  supplements.  To  me,  deep  down  in 
my  heart,  the  child  was  an  animated  joke.  I  was  im- 
mersed in  unscientific  preconceptions.  But  the  master 
craftsman  had  gained  his  conception  of  child  life  from 
intimate,  empirical  acquaintance  with  the  genus  boy. 
He  had  gleaned  from  his  experience  that  fundamental 


126  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN    TEACHING 

truth:    "The  child  is  the  most  serious  creature  in  the 
world." 

Sometime  I  hope  that  I  may  make  some  fitting  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  debt  of  gratitude  that  I  owe  to 
that  man.  The  opportunities  that  I  had  to  talk  with 
him  were  all  too  few,  but  I  did  make  a  memorable  visit 
to  his  school,  and  studied  at  first  hand  the  great  work 
that  he  was  doing  for  the  pupils  of  the  Columbia  dis- 
trict. He  died  the  next  year,  and  I  shall  never  forget 
the  words  that  stood  beneath  his  picture  that  night  in 
one  of  the  daily  papers:  "Charles  Howard:  Architect 
of  Character." 

n 

The  essence  of  the  scientific  spirit  is  to  view  experi- 
ence without  prejudice,  and  that  was  the  lesson  that  I 
learned  from  the  school  system  of  St. Louis. 

The  difference  between  the  ideal  child  and  the  real 
child,  —  the  difference  between  what  fancy  pictures  a 
schoolroom  to  be  and  what  actual  first-hand  acquaint- 
ance shows  that  it  is,  the  difference  between  a  precon- 
ceived notion  and  an  actual  stubborn  fact  of  experience, 
—  these  were  among  the  lessons  that  I  learned  in  these 
schools.  But,  at  the  same  time,  there  was  no  crass 
materialism  accompanying  this  teaching.  There  was 
no  loss  of  the  broader  point  of  view.  A  fact  is  a  fact, 
and  we  cannot  get  around  it,  —  and  this  is  what  scien- 
tific method  has  insisted  upon  from  its  inception.  But 
always  beyond  the  fact  is  its  significance,  its  meaning. 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT  IN   EDUCATION  1 27 

That  the  St.  Louis  schools  have  for  the  last  fifty  years 
stood  for  the  larger  view ;  that  they  have  never,  so  far 
as  I  know,  exploited  the  new  and  the  bizarre  simply 
because  it  was  new  and  strange,  —  this  is  due,  I  be- 
lieve, to  the  insight  and  inspiration  of  the  man^  who 
first  fashioned  the  framework  of  this  system,  and 
breathed  into  it  as  a  system  the  vitalizing  element  of 
idealism.  Personally,  I  have  not  always  been  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  teachings  of  the  Hegelian  philosophy,  — 
I  have  not  always  understood  them,  —  but  no  man 
could  witness  the  silent,  steady,  unchecked  growth  of 
the  St.  Louis  schools  without  being  firmly  and  indelibly 
impressed  with  dynamic  value  of  a  richly  conceived  and 
rigidly  wrought  system  of  fundamental  principles.  The 
cause  of  education  has  suffered  much  from  the  failure 
of  educators  to  break  loose  from  the  shackles  of  the  past. 
But  it  has,  in  some  places,  suffered  still  more  from  the 
tendency  of  the  human  mind  to  confuse  fundamental 
principles  with  the  shackles  of  tradition.  The  rage  for 
the  new  and  the  untried,  simply  because  it  is  new  and 
untried,  —  this  has  been,  and  is  to-day,  the  rock  upon 
which  real  educational  progress  is  most  likely  to  be 
wrecked.  This  is  a  rock,  I  believe,  that  St.  Louis  has 
so  far  escaped,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  its  escape  has 
been  due,  in  large  measure,  to  the  careful,  rigid,  laborious, 
and  yet  illuminating  manner  in  which  that  great  captain 
charted  out  its  course. 

»  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris. 


128  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

III 

Fundamentally,  there  is,  I  believe,  no  discrepancy,  no 
inconsistency,  between  the  scientific  spirit  in  education 
and  what  may  be  called  the  philosophical  spirit.  As  I 
have  suggested,  there  are  always  two  dangers  that 
must  be  avoided  :  the  danger,  in  the  first  place,  of  think- 
ing of  the  old  as  essentially  bad ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  danger  of  thinking  of  the  new  and  strange 
and  unknown  as  essentially  bad ;  the  danger  of  confus- 
ing a  sound  conservatism  with  a  blind  worship  of  estab- 
ished  custom;  and  the  danger  of  confusing  a  sound 
radicalism  with  the  blind  worship  of  the  new  and  the 
bizarre. 

Let  me  give  you  an  example  of  what  I  mean.  There 
is  a  rather  bitter  controversy  at  present  between  two 
factions  of  science  teachers.  One  faction  insists  that 
physics  and  chemistry  and  biology  should  be  taught  in 
the  high  school  from  the  economic  point  of  view,  —  that 
the  economic  applications  of  these  sciences  to  great 
human  arts,  such  as  engineering  and  agriculture,  should 
be  emphasized  at  every  point,  —  that  a  great  deal  of 
the  material  now  taught  in  these  sciences  is  both  use- 
less and  unattractive  to  the  average  high-school  pupil. 
The  other  faction  maintains  that  such  a  course  would 
mean  the  destruction  of  science  as  an  integral  part  of 
the  secondary  culture  course,  —  that  science  to  be  cul- 
tural must  be  pure  science,  —  must  be  viewed  apart 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION  1 29 

from  its  economic  applications,  —  apart  from  its  rela- 
tions to  the  bread-and-butter  problem. 

Now  many  of  the  advocates  of  the  first  point  of 
view  —  many  of  the  people  that  would  emphasize  the 
economic  side  —  are  animated  by  the  spirit  of  change 
and  unrest  which  dominates  our  latter-day  civilization. 
They  wish  to  follow  the  popular  demand.  ''Down  with 
scholasticism!"  is  their  cry;  "Down  with  this  blind 
worship  of  custom  and  tradition !  Let  us  do  the  thing 
that  gives  the  greatest  immediate  benefit  to  our  pupils. 
Let  us  discard  the  elements  in  our  courses  that  are  hard 
and  dry  and  barren  of  practical  results."  Now  these 
men,  I  believe,  are  basing  their  argument  upon  the 
fallacy  of  immediate  expediency.  The  old  is  bad,  the 
new  is  good.  That  is  their  argument.  They  have  no 
sheet  anchor  out  to  windward.  They  are  willing  to 
drift  with  the  gale. 

Many  of  the  advocates  of  the  second  point  of  view 
—  many  of  the  people  who  hold  to  the  old  line,  pure- 
science  teaching  —  are,  on  the  other  hand,  animated  by 
a  spirit  of  irrational  conservatism.  "Down  with  radical- 
ism! "  they  shout ;  "Down  with  the  innovators  !  Things 
that  are  hard  and  dry  are  good  mental  discipline.  They 
made  our  fathers  strong.  They  can  make  our  children 
strong.  What  was  good  enough  for  the  great  minds  of 
the  past  is  good  enough  for  us." 

Now  these  men,  I  believe,  have  gone  to  the  other 
extreme.    They  have  confused  custom  and   tradition 


130  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

with  fundamental  and  eternal  principles.  They  have 
thought  that,  just  because  a  thing  is  old,  it  is  good, 
just  as  their  antagonists  have  thought  that  just  because 
a  thing  is  new  it  is  good. 

In  both  cases,  obviously,  the  scientific  spirit  is  lack- 
ing. The  most  fundamental  of  all  principles  is  the 
principle  of  truth.  And  yet  these  men  who  are  teachers 
of  science  are  —  both  classes  of  them  —  ruled  them- 
selves by  dogma.  And  meantime  the  sciences  are  in 
danger  of  losing  their  place  in  secondary  education. 
The  rich  promise  that  was  held  out  a  generation  ago 
has  not  been  fulfilled.  Within  the  last  decade,  the  en- 
rollment in  the  science  courses  has  not  increased  in 
proportion  to  the  total  enrollment,  while  the  enroll- 
ment in  Latin  (which  fifteen  years  ago  was  about  to  be 
cast  upon  the  educational  scrap  heap)  has  grown  by 
leaps  and  bounds. 

Now  this  is  a  type  of  a  great  many  controversies  in 
education.  We  talk  and  theorize,  but  very  seldom  do 
we  try  to  find  out  the  actual  facts  in  the  case  by  any 
adequate  tests. 

It  was  the  lack  of  such  tests  that  led  us  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Illinois  to  enter  upon  a  series  of  impartial 
investigations  to  see  whether  we  could  not  take  some  of 
these  mooted  questions  out  of  the  realm  of  eternal  con- 
troversy, and  provide  some  definite  solutions.  We 
chose  among  others  this  controversy  between  the  eco- 
nomic scientists  and  the  pure  scientists.    We  took  a  high- 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT   IN   EDUCATION  I3I 

school  class  and  divided  it  into  two  sections.  We  tried 
to  place  in  each  section  an  equal  number  of  bright  and 
mediocre  and  dull  pupils,  so  that  the  conditions  would 
be  equalized.  Then  we  chose  an  excellent  teacher,  a 
man  who  could  approach  the  problem  with  an  open 
mind,  without  prejudice  or  favor.  During  the  present 
year  he  has  been  teaching  these  parallel  sections.  In 
one  section  he  has  emphasized  economic  appUcations; 
in  the  other  he  has  taught  the  class  upon  the  customary 
pure-science  basis.  He  has  kept  a  careful  record  of  his 
work,  and  at  stated  intervals  he  has  given  both  sections 
the  same  tests.  We  propose  to  carry  on  this  investi- 
gation year  after  year  with  different  classes,  different 
teachers,  and  in  different  schools.  We  are  not  in  a 
hurry  to  reach  conclusions. 

Now  I  said  that  the  safeguard  in  all  work  of  this 
sort  is  to  keep  our  grip  firm  and  fast  on  the  eternal 
truths.  In  this  work  that  I  mention  we  are  not  trying 
to  prove  that  either  pure  science  or  applied  science 
interests  our  pupils  the  more  or  helps  them  the  more 
in  meeting  immediate  economic  situations.  We  do  not 
propose  to  measure  the  success  of  either  method  by 
its  effect  upon  the  bread-winning  power  of  the  pupil. 
What  we  believe  that  science  teaching  should  insure,  is 
a  grip  on  the  scientific  method  and  an  illuminating  in- 
sight into  the  forces  of  nature,  and  we  are  simply  at- 
tempting to  see  whether  the  economic  applications  will 
make  this  grip  firmer  or  weaker,  and  this  insight  clearer 


132  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

or  more  obscure.  I  trust  that  this  point  is  plain,  for  it 
illustrates  what  I  have  just  said  regarding  the  danger  of 
following  a  popular  demand.  We  need  no  experiment 
to  prove  that  economic  science  is  more  useful  in  the 
narrow  sense  than  is  pure  science.  What  we  wish  to 
determine  is  whether  a  judicious  mixture  of  the  two 
sorts  of  teaching  will  or  will  not  enable  us  to  realize 
this  rich  cultural  value  much  more  effectively  than  a 
traditional  purely  cultural  course. 

Now  that  illustrates  what  I  think  is  the  real  and 
important  application  of  the  scientific  spirit  to  the  solu- 
tion of  educational  problems.  You  wiU  readily  see  that 
it  does  not  do  away  necessarily  with  our  ideals.  It 
is  not  necessarily  materialistic.  It  is  not  necessarily 
ideaUstic.  Either  side  may  utilize  it.  It  is  a  quite 
impersonal  factor.  But  it  does  promise  to  take  some 
of  our  educational  problems  out  of  the  field  of  useless 
and  wasteful  controversy,  and  it  does  promise  to  get 
men  of  conflicting  views  together,  —  for,  in  the  case 
that  I  have  just  cited,  if  we  prove  that  the  right  ad- 
mixture of  methods  may  enable  us  to  realize  both  a 
cultural  and  a  utilitarian  value,  there  is  no  reason  why 
the  culturists  and  the  utilitarians  should  not  get  together, 
cease  their  quarreling,  take  off  their  coats,  and  go  to 
work.  Few  people  will  deny  that  bread  and  butter  is  a 
rather  essential  thing  in  this  life  of  ours ;  very  few  will 
deny  that  material  prosperity  in  temperate  amounts  is 
good  for  all  of  us ;  and  very  few  also  will  deny  that  far 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT   IN    EDUCATION  I33 

more  fundamental  than  bread  and  butter  —  far  more 
important  than  material  prosperity  —  are  the  great 
fundamental  and  eternal  truths  which  man  has  wrought 
out  of  his  experience  and  which  are  most  effectively 
crystallized  in  the  creations  of  pure  art,  the  master- 
pieces of  pure  literature,  and  the  discoveries  of  pure 
science. 

Certainly  if  we  of  the  twentieth  century  can  agree 
upon  any  one  thing,  it  is  this :  That  life  without  toil  is 
a  crime,  and  that  any  one  who  enjoys  leisure  and  com- 
fort and  the  luxuries  of  living  without  paying  the  price 
of  toil  is  a  social  parasite.  I  believe  that  it  is  an  im- 
portant function  of  public  education  to  impress  upon 
each  generation  the  highest  ideals  of  living  as  well  as 
the  arts  that  are  essential  to  the  making  of  a  livelihood, 
but  I  wish  to  protest  against  the  doctrine  that  these 
two  factors  stand  over  against  one  another  as  the  posi- 
tive and  negative  poles  of  human  existence.  In  other 
words,  I  protest  against  the  notion,  that  the  study  of 
the  practical  everyday  problems  of  human  hfe  is  without 
what  we  are  pleased  to  call  a  culture  value,  —  that  in 
the  proper  study  of  those  problems  one  is  not  able  to 
see  the  operation  of  fundamental  and  eternal  principles. 

I  shall  readily  agree  that  there  is  always  a  grave 
danger  that  the  trivial  and  temporary  objects  of  every- 
day life  may  be  viewed  and  studied  without  reference 
to  these  fundamental  principles.  But  this  danger  is 
certainly  no  greater  than  that  the  permanent  and  eter- 


134  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

nal  truths  be  studied  without  reference  to  the  actual, 
concrete,  workaday  world  in  which  we  live.  I  have 
seen  exercises  in  manual  training  that  had  for  their 
purpose  the  perfection  of  the  pupil  in  some  little  art 
of  joinery  for  which  he  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
not  the  slightest  use  in  his  later  life.  But  even  if  he 
should  find  use  for  it,  the  process  was  not  being  taught 
in  the  proper  way.  He  was  being  made  conscious 
only  of  the  little  trivial  thing,  and  no  part  of  his  in- 
struction was  directed  toward  the  much  more  important, 
fundamental  lesson,  —  the  lesson,  namely,  that  "a  little 
thing  may  be  perfect,  but  that  perfection  itself  is  not  a 
little  thing." 

I  say  that  I  have  witnessed  such  an  exercise  in  the 
very  practical  field  of  manual  training.  I  may  add 
that  I  went  through  several  such  exercises  myself,  and 
emerged  with  a  disgust  that  always  recurs  to  me  when 
I  am  told  that  every  boy  will  respond  to  the  stimulus 
of  the  hammer  and  the  jack  plane.  But  I  should  hasten 
to  add  that  I  have  also  seen  what  we  call  the  humani- 
ties so  taught  that  the  pupil  has  emerged  from  them 
with  a  supreme  contempt  for  the  Ufe  of  labor  and  a 
feeling  of  disgust  at  the  petty  and  trivial  problems  of 
human  life  which  every  one  must  face.  I  have  seen 
art  and  literature  so  taught  as  to  leave  their  students 
not  with  the  high  purpose  to  mold  their  lives  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  high  ideals  that  art  and  literature 
represent,   not   the   firm   resolution   to   do   what   they 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPIRIT   IN   EDUCATION  I35 

could  to  relieve  the  ugliness  of  the  world  where 
they  found  it  ugly,  or  to  do  what  they  could  to 
ennoble  life  when  they  found  it  vile;  but  rather 
with  an  attitude  of  calm  superiority,  as  if  they  were 
in  some  way  privileged  to  the  delights  of  aesthetic 
enjoyment,  leaving  the  baser  born  to  do  the  world's 
drudgery, 

I  have  seen  the  principles  of  agriculture  so  taught  as 
to  leave  with  the  student  the  impression  that  he  could 
raise  more  corn  than  his  neighbor  and  sell  it  at  a  higher 
price  if  he  mastered  the  principles  of  nitrification;  and 
all  without  one  single  reference  to  the  basic  principle  of 
conservation  upon  which  the  welfare  of  the  human 
race  for  all  time  to  come  must  inevitably  depend,  — 
without  a  single  reference  to  the  moral  iniquity  of 
waste  and  sloth  and  ignorance.  But  I  have  also  seen 
men  who  have  mastered  the  scientific  method,  —  the 
method  of  controlled  observation,  and  unprejudiced 
induction  and  inference,  —  in  the  laboratories  of  pure 
science;  and  who  have  gained  so  overweening  and 
hypertrophied  a  regard  for  this  method  that  they  have 
considered  it  too  holy  to  be  contaminated  by  applica- 
tion to  practical  problems,  —  who  have  sneered  con- 
temptuously when  some  adventurer  has  proposed,  for 
example,  to  subject  the  teaching  of  science  itself  to  the 
searchlight  of  scientific  method. 

I  trust  that  these  examples  have  made  my  point 
clear,  for  it  is  certainly  simple  enough.     If  vocational 


136  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

education  means  simply  that  the  arts  and  skills  of  in- 
dustrial life  are  to  be  transmitted  safely  from  genera- 
tion to  generation,  a  minimum  of  educational  machinery 
is  all  that  is  necessary,  and  we  do  not  need  to  worry 
much  about  it.  If  vocational  education  means  simply 
this,  it  need  not  trouble  us  much ;  for  economic  condi- 
tions will  sooner  or  later  provide  for  an  effective  means 
of  transmission,  just  as  economic  conditions  will  sooner 
or  later  perfect,  through  a  blind  and  empirical  process 
of  elimination,  the  most  effective  methods  of  agricul- 
ture, as  in  the  case  of  China  and  other  overpopulated 
nations  of  the  Orient. 

But  I  take  it  that  we  mean  by  vocational  education 
something  more  than  this,  just  as  we  mean  by  cultural 
education  something  more  than  a  veneer  of  language, 
history,  pure  science,  and  the  fine  arts.  In  the  former 
case,  the  practical  problems  of  life  are  to  be  lifted  to 
the  plane  of  fundamental  principles ;  in  the  latter  case, 
fundamental  principles  are  to  be  brought  down  to  the 
plane  of  present,  everyday  Ufe.  I  can  see  no  dis- 
crepancy here.  To  my  mind  there  is  no  cultural  sub- 
ject that  has  not  its  practical  outcome,  and  there  is  no 
practical  subject  that  has  not  its  humanizing  influence 
if  only  we  go  to  some  pains  to  seek  it  out.  I  do  not 
object  to  a  subject  of  instruction  that  promises  to  put 
dollars  into  the  pockets  of  those  that  study  it.  I  do 
object  to  the  mode  of  teaching  that  subject  which  fails 
to  use  this  effective  economic  appeal  in  stimulating  a 


THE   SCIENTrFIC   SPIRIT  IN  EDUCATION  I37 

glimpse  of  the  broader  vision.  I  do  not  object  to  the 
subject  that  appeals  to  the  pupil's  curiosity  because  it 
informs  him  of  the  wonderful  deeds  that  men  have  done 
in  the  past.  I  do  object  to  that  mode  of  teaching  this 
subject  which  simply  arouses  interest  in  a  spectacular 
deed,  and  then  fails  to  use  this  interest  in  the  inter- 
pretation of  present  problems.  I  do  not  contend  that 
in  either  case  there  must  be  an  explicit  pointing  of 
morals  and  drawing  of  lessons.  But  I  do  contend  that 
the  teacher  who  is  in  charge  of  the  process  should 
always  have  this  purpose  in  the  forefront  of  his  con- 
sciousness, and  —  now  by  direct  comparison,  now  by 
indirection  and  suggestion  —  guide  his  pupils  to  the 
goal  desired. 

I  hope  that  through  careful  tests,  we  shall  some  day 
be  able  to  demonstrate  that  there  is  much  that  is  good 
and  valuable  on  both  sides  of  every  controverted  educa- 
tional question.  After  all,  in  this  complex  and  intricate 
task  of  teaching  to  which  you  and  I  are  devoting  our 
Uves,  there  is  too  much  at  stake  to  permit  us  for  a 
moment  to  be  dogmatic,  —  to  permit  us  for  a  moment 
to  hold  ourselves  in  any  other  attitude  save  one  of 
openness  and  reception  to  the  truth  when  the  truth 
shall  have  been  demonstrated.  Neither  your  ideas  nor 
mine,  nor  those  of  any  man  or  group  of  men,  living  or 
dead,  are  important  enough  to  stand  in  the  way  of  the 
best  possible  accomplishment  of  that  great  task  to  which 
we  have  set  our  hands. 


138  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

IV 

But  I  did  not  propose  this  morning  to  talk  to  you 
about  science  as  a  part  of  our  educational  curriculum, 
but  rather  about  the  scientific  spirit  and  the  scientific 
method  as  effective  instruments  for  the  solution  of  our 
own  peculiar  educational  problems.  I  have  tried  to 
give  you  reasons  for  believing  that  an  adoption  of  this 
policy  does  not  necessarily  commit  us  to  materialism 
or  to  a  narrowly  economic  point  of  view.  I  have  at- 
tempted to  show  that  the  scientific  method  may  be 
applied  to  the  solution  of  our  problems  while  we  still 
retain  our  faith  in  ideals ;  and  that,  unless  we  do  retain 
that  faith,  our  investigations  will  be  without  point  or 
meaning. 

This  problem  of  vocational  education  to  which  I 
have  just  referred  is  one  that  is  likely  to  remain  im- 
solved  until  we  have  made  a  searching  investigation 
of  its  factors  in  the  light  of  scientific  method.  Some 
people  profess  not  to  be  worried  by  the  difficulty  of 
finding  time  in  our  elementary  and  secondary  schools 
for  the  introduction  of  the  newer  subjects  making  for 
increased  vocational  efficiency.  They  would  cut  the 
Gordian  knot  with  one  single  operation  by  eliminating 
enough  of  the  older  subjects  to  make  room  for  the 
new.  I  confess  that  this  solution  does  not  appeal  to 
me.  Fimdamentally  the  core  of  the  elementary  cur- 
riculum must,  I  believe,  always  be  the  arts  that  are 


THE    SCIENTIFIC    SPIRIT   IN   EDUCATION  I39 

essential  to  every  one  who  lives  the  social  life.  In  other 
words,  the  language  arts  and  the  number  arts  are,  and 
always  must  be,  the  fundamentals  of  elementary  edu- 
cation. I  do  not  believe  that  specialized  vocational 
education  should  ever  be  introduced  at  the  expense  of 
thorough  training  in  the  subjects  that  already  hold 
their  place  in  the  curriculum.  And  yet  we  are  con- 
fronted by  the  economic  necessity  of  solving  in  some 
way  this  vocational  problem.    How  are  we  to  do  it? 

It  is  here  that  the  scientific  method  may  perhaps 
come  to  our  aid.  The  obvious  avenue  of  attack  upon 
this  problem  is  to  determine  whether  we  cannot  save 
time  and  energy,  not  by  the  drastic  operation  of  elimi- 
nating old  subjects,  but  rather  by  improving  our 
technique  of  teaching,  so  that  the  waste  may  be  re- 
duced, and  the  time  thus  saved  given  to  these  new 
subjects  that  are  so  vociferously  demanding  admission. 
In  Cleveland,  for  example,  the  method  of  teaching 
spelling  has  been  subjected  to  a  rigid  scientific  treat- 
ment, and,  as  a  result,  spelling  is  being  taught  to-day 
vastly  better  than  ever  before  and  with  a  much  smaller 
expenditure  of  time  and  energy.  It  has  been  due,  very 
largely,  to  the  application  of  a  few  well-known  prin- 
ciples which  the  science  of  psychology  has  furnished. 

Now  that  is  vastly  better  than  saying  that  spelling  is 
a  subject  that  takes  too  much  time  in  our  schools  and 
consequently  ought  forthwith  to  be  eliminated.  In 
all  of  our  school  work  enough  time  is  undoubtedly 


14©  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

wasted  to  provide  ample  opportunity  for  training  the 
child  thoroughly  in  some  vocation  if  we  wish  to  vocation- 
alize  him,  and  I  do  not  think  that  this  would  hurt 
him,  even  if  he  does  not  follow  the  vocation  in  later  Ufe. 

To-day  we  are  attempting  to  detect  these  sources  of 
waste  in  technique.  The  problems  of  habit  building  or 
memorizing  are  already  well  on  the  way  to  solution. 
Careful  tests  have  shown  the  value  of  doing  memory 
work  in  a  certain  definite  way  —  learning  by  unit 
wholes  rather  than  by  fragments,  for  example.  Experi- 
ments have  been  conducted  to  determine  the  best 
length  of  time  to  give  to  drill  processes,  such  as  spelling, 
and  penmanship,  and  the  fundamental  tables  of  arith- 
metic. It  is  already  clearly  demonstrated  that  brief 
periods  of  intense  concentration  are  more  economical 
than  longer  periods  during  which  the  monotony  of 
repetition  fags  the  mind  to  a  point  where  it  can  no 
longer  work  effectively.  We  are  also  beginning  to  see 
from  these  tests,  that  a  systematic  method  of  attacking 
such  a  problem  as  the  memorizing  of  the  tables  will  do 
much  to  save  time  and  promote  efficiency.  We  are 
finding  that  it  is  extremely  profitable  to  instruct  chil- 
dren in  the  technique  of  learning,  —  to  start  them  out 
in  the  right  way  by  careful  example,  so  that  much  of 
the  time  and  energy  that  was  formerly  dissipated,  may 
now  be  conserved. 

And  there  is  a  suggestion,  also,  that  in  the  average 
school,  the  vast  possibiUties  of  the  child's  latent  energy 


THE   SCIENTIFIC   SPEEUT   IN   EDUCATION  I4I 

are  only  imperfectly  realized.  A  friend  of  mine  stumbled 
accidentally  upon  this  fact  by  introducing  a  new  method 
of  grading.  He  divided  his  pupils  into  three  groups 
or  streams.  The  group  that  progressed  the  fastest  was 
made  up  of  those  who  averaged  85  per  cent  and  over 
in  their  work.  A  middle  group  averaged  between  75 
per  cent  and  85  per  cent  in  their  work,  and  a  third, 
slow  group  was  made  up  of  those  who  averaged  below 
75  per  cent.  At  the  end  of  the  first  month,  he  found 
that  a  certain  proportion  of  his  pupils,  who  had  formerly 
hovered  around  the  passing  grade  of  70,  began  to  forge 
ahead.  Many  of  them  easily  went  into  the  fastest 
stream,  but  they  were  still  satisfied  with  the  minimum 
standing  for  that  group.  In  other  words,  whether  we 
like  to  admit  it  or  not,  most  men  and  women  and  boys 
and  girls  are  content  with  the  passing  grades,  both  in 
school  and  in  hfe.  So  common  is  the  phenomenon  that 
we  think  of  the  matter  fatalistically.  But  supply  a 
stimulus,  raise  the  standard,  and  you  will  find  some  of 
these  individuals  forging  up  to  the  next  level. 
j^  Professor  James's  doctrine  of  latent  energies  bids  fair 
to  furnish  the  solution  of  a  vast  number  of  perplexing 
educational  problems.  Certain  it  is  that  our  pupils  of 
to-day  are  not  overburdened  with  work.  They  are 
sometimes  irritated  by  too  many  tasks,  sometimes 
dulled  by  dead  routine,  sometimes  exhilarated  to  the 
point  of  mental  ennui  by  spectacular  appeals  to  im- 
mediate interest.    But  they  are  seldom  overworked,  or 


142  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

even  worked  to  within  a  healthful  degree  of  the  fatigue 
point. 

Elementary  education  has  often  been  accused  of 
transacting  its  business  in  small  coin,  —  of  dealing  with 
and  emphasizing  trivialities,  —  and  yet  every  time  that 
the  scientific  method  touches  the  field  of  education,  it 
reveals  the  fundamental  significance  of  little  things. 
Whether  the  third-grade  pupil  should  memorize  the 
multiplication  tables  in  the  form,  "8  times  9  equals  72" 
or  simply  "8-9's  —  72  "  seems  a  matter  of  insignificance 
in  contrast  with  the  larger  problems  that  beset  us. 
And  yet  scientific  investigation  tells  us  clearly  and 
unequivocally  that  any  useless  addition  to  a  formula 
to  be  memorized  increases  the  time  for  reducing  the 
formula  to  memory,  and  interferes  significantly  with  its 
recall  and  application.  It  may  seem  a  matter  of  trivial 
importance  whether  the  pupil  increases  the  subtrahend 
number  or  decreases  the  minuend  number  when  he 
subtracts  digits  that  involve  taking  or  borrowing;  and 
yet  investigation  proves  that  to  increase  the  subtrahend 
number  is  by  far  the  simpler  process,  and  eliminates 
both  a  source  of  waste  and  a  source  of  error,  which,  in 
the  aggregate,  may  assume  a  significance  to  mental 
economy  that  is  well  worth  considering. 

In  fact,  if  we  are  ever  to  solve  the  broader,  bigger,  more 
attractive  problems,  —  like  the  problem  of  vocational 
education,  or  the  problem  of  retardation,  — we  must 
first  find  a  solution  for  some  of  the  smaller  and  seemingly 


THE    SCIENTIFIC   SPnOT   IN   EDUCATION  143 

trivial  questions  of  the  very  existence  of  which  the  lay 
public  may  be  quite  unaware,  but  which  you  and  I  know 
to  mean  an  untold  total  of  waste  and  inefficiency  in  the 
work  that  we  are  tr)dng  to  do. 

And  one  reason  why  the  scientific  attitude  toward  edu- 
cational problems  appeals  to  me  is  simply  because  this 
attitude  carries  with  it  a  respect  for  these  seemingly 
trivial  and  commonplace  problems;  for  just  as  the 
greatest  triumph  of  the  teaching  art  is  to  get  our  pupils  to 
see  in  those  things  of  life  that  are  fleeting  and  transitory 
the  operation  of  fundamental  and  eternal  principles,  so  the 
glory  of  the  scientific  method  lies  in  its  power  to  reveal  the 
significance  of  the  conmionplace  and  to  teach  us  that  no 
slightest  detail  of  our  daily  work  is  necessarily  devoid  of 
inspiration ;  that  every  slightest  detail  of  school  method 
and  school  management  has  a  meaning  and  a  significance 
that  it  is  worth  our  while  to  ponder. 


vm 

The  Possibility  of  Training  Children  how  to 
Stxjdy* 


In  its  widest  aspects,  the  problem  of  teaching  pupils 
how  to  study  forms  a  large  part  of  the  larger  educational 
problem.  It  means,  not  only  teaching  them  how  to  read 
books,  and  to  make  the  content  of  books  part  of  their  own 
mental  capital,  but  also,  and  perhaps  far  more  signifi- 
cantly, teaching  them  how  to  draw  lessons  from  their  own 
experiences ;)  not  only  how  to  observe  and  classify  and 
draw  conclusions,  but  also  how  to  evaluate  their  ex- 
perience —  how  to  judge  whether  certain  things  that  they 
do  give  adequate  or  inadequate  results. 

In  the  narrower  sense,  however,  the  art  of  study  may  be 
said  to  consist  in  the  ability  to  assimilate  the  experiences 
of  others,  and  it  is  in  this  narrower  sense  that  I  shall  dis- 
cuss the  problem  to-day.  It  is  not  only  in  books  that 
human  experience  is  recorded,  and  yet  it  is  true  that  the 
reading  of  books  is  the  most  economical  means  of  gaining 
these  experiences ;    consequently,  we  may  still    further 

^  A  paper  read  before  the  Superintendents'  Section  of  the  Illinois  State 
Teachers'  Association,  December  29,  1910. 

144 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW   TO    STUDY  145 

narrow  our  problem  to  this :  How  may  pupils  be  trained 
effectively  to  glean,  through  the  medium  of  the  printed 
page,  the  great  lessons  of  race  experience? 

The  word  "study"  is  thus  used  in  the  sense  in  which 
most  teachers  employ  it.  When  we  speak  of  a  pupil's 
studying  his  lessons,  we  commonly  mean  that  he  is  bend- 
ing over  a  text-book,  attempting  to  assimilate  the  contents 
of  the  text.  Just  what  it  means  to  study,  even  in  this 
narrow  sense  of  the  term,  —  just  what  it  means,  psycho- 
logically, to  assimilate  even  the  simplest  thoughts  of 
others,  — I  cannot  teU  you,  and  I  do  not  know  of  any  one 
who  can  answer  this  seemingly  simple  question  satisfac- 
torily. We  all  study,  but  what  happens  in  oUr  minds 
when  we  do  study  is  a  mystery.  We  all  do  some  think- 
ing, and  yet  the  psychology  of  thinking  is  the  great  un- 
discovered and  unexplored  region  in  the  field  of  mental 
science.  Until  we  know  something  of  the  psychology  of 
thinking,  we  can  hope  for  very  little  definite  information 
concerning  the  psychology  of  study,  for  study  is  so  in- 
timately bound  up  with  thinking  that  the  two  are  not 
to  be  separated. 

But  even  if  it  is  impossible  at  the  present  time  to  ana- 
lyze the  process  of  studying,  we  are  pretty  well  agreed  as 
to  what  constitutes  successful  study,  and  many  rules  have 
been  formulated  for  helping  pupils  to  acquire  effective 
fiamts  of  study.  These  rules  concern  us  only  indirectly 
at  the  present  time,  for  our  problem  is  still  narrower  in  its 
scope.     It  has  to  do  with  the  possibility  of  so  training 


146  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

children  in  the  art  of  study,  not  only  that  they  may  study 
effectively  in  school,  but  also  that  they  may  carry  over  the 
habits  and  methods  of  study  thus  acquired  into  the  tasks 
of  later  life.  In  other  words,  the  topic  that  we  are  dis- 
cussing is  but  one  phase  of  the  problem  of  formal  disci- 
pline, —  the  problem  of  securing  a  transfer  of  training 
from  a  specific  field  to  other  fields ;  and  my  purpose  is  to 
view  this  topic  of  "study"  in  the  light  of  what  we  know 
concerning  the  possibilities  of  transfer. 

Let  me  take  a  specific  example.  I  am  not  so  much  con- 
cerned with  the  problem  of  getting  a  pupil  to  master  a 
history  lesson  quickly  and  effectively,  —  not  how  he  may 
best  assimilate  the  facts  concerning  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise, for  example.  My  task  is  rather  to  determine 
how  we  can  make  his  mastery  of  the  Missouri  Compro- 
mise a  lesson  in  the  general  art  of  study,  —  how  that 
mastery  may  help  him  develop  what  we  used  to  call  the 
general  power  of  study,  —  the  capacity  to  apply  an  effec- 
tive method  of  study  to  other  problems,  perhaps,  very 
far  removed  from  the  history  lesson;  in  other  words, 
how  that  single  lesson  may  help  him  in  the  more  general 
task  of  finding  any  type  of  information  when  he  needs  it, 
of  assimilating  it  once  he  has  found  it,  and  of  applying  it 
once  he  has  assimilated  it. 

In  an  audience  of  practical  teachers,  it  is  hardly  neces- 
sary to  emphasize  the  significance  of  doing  this  very  thing. 
From  one  point  of  view,  it  may  be  asserted  that  the  whole 
future  of  what  we  term  general  education,  as  distinguished 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO    STUDY  147 

from  technical  or  vocational  education,  depends  upon  our 
ability  to  solve  problems  like  this,  and  solve  them  satisfac- 
torily. We  can  never  justify  universal  general  education 
beyond  the  merest  rudiments  unless  we  can  demon- 
strate acceptably  that  the  training  which  general  educa- 
tion furnishes  will  help  the  individual  to  solve  the  every- 
day problems  of  his  life.  Either  we  must  train  the  pupil 
in  a  general  way  so  that  he  will  be  able  to  acquire  special- 
ized skill  more  quickly  and  more  efifectively  than  will  the 
pupil  who  lacks  this  general  training ;  or  we  must  give 
up  a  large  part  of  the  general-culture  courses  that  now 
occupy  an  important  part  in  our  elementary  and  secon- 
dary curriculmns,  and  replace  these  with  technical  and 
vocational  subjects  that  shall  have  for  their  purpose  the 
development  of  specialized  efl5ciency. 

All  teachers,  I  take  it,  are  alive  to  the  grave  dangers 
of  the  latter  policy.  Whether  we  have  thought  the 
matter  through  logically  or  not  we  certainly /ee/  strongly 
that  too  early  speciahzation  will  work  a  serious  injury  to 
the  cause  of  education,  and,  through  education,  to  the 
larger  cause  of  social  advancement  and  enlightenment. 
We  view  with  grave  foreboding  any  poUcy  that  will  shut 
the  door  of  opportunity  to  any  child,  no  matter  how 
humble  or  how  unpromising.  And  yet  we  also  know  that, 
imless  the  general  education  that  we  now  offer  can  be  dis- 
tinctiy  shown  to  have  a  beneficial  influence  upon  special- 
ized efficiency,  we  shall  be  forced  by  economic  conditions 
into  this  very  policy.     It  is  small  wonder,  then,  that  so 


148  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

many  of  our  educational  discussions  and  investigations 
to-day  turn  upon  this  problem ;  and  among  the  various 
phases  of  the  problem  none  is  more  significant  than  that 
which  is  covered  by  our  topic  of  to-day,  —  How  may  we 
develop  in  the  pupil  a  general  power  or  capacity  for  gain- 
ing information  independently  of  schools  and  teachers  ? 
If  we  could  adequately  develop  this  power,  there  is  much 
in  the  way  of  specialized  instruction  that  could  be  safely 
left  to  the  individual  himself.  If  we  could  teach  him 
how  to  study,  then  we  could  perhaps  trust  him  to  master 
some  of  the  principles  of  any  calling  that  he  undertakes 
in  so  far  as  these  principles  can  be  mastered  from  books. 
To  teach  the  child  to  study  effectively  is  to  do  the  most 
useful  thing  that  could  be  done  to  help  him  to  adjust 
himself  to  any  environment  of  modem  civilized  life  into 
which  he  may  be  thrown.  For  there  is  one  thing  that 
the  more  radical  advocates  of  a  narrow  vocational  edu- 
cation commonly  forget,  and  that  is  the  constant  change 
that  is  going  on  in  industrial  processes.  When  we  limit 
our  vocational  teaching  to  a  mere  mastery  of  technique, 
there  is  no  guarantee  that  the  process  which  we  teach 
to-day  may  not  be  discarded  in  five  or  ten  years  from 
to-day.  Even  the  narrower  technical  principles  which 
are  so  extremely  important  to-day  may  be  relatively 
insignificant  by  the  time  that  the  child  whom  we  are 
training  takes  his  place  in  the  industrial  world.  But  if 
we  can  arm  the  individual  with  the  more  fundamental 
principles  which  are  fixed  for  all  time ;  and  if,  in  addi- 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO    STUDY  149 

tion  to  this,  we  can  teach  him  how  to  master  the 
specialized  principles  which  may  come  into  the  field  un- 
heralded and  unexpected,  and  turn  topsy-turvy  the  older 
methods  of  doing  his  work,  then  we  shall  have  done 
much  toward  helping  him  in  solving  that  perplexing 
problem  of  gaining  a  livelihood. 

n 

I  shall  not  try  in  this  discussion  of  the  problem  of  study 
to  summarize  completely  the  principles  and  precepts  that 
have  been  presented  so  well  in  the  four  books  on  the 
subject  that  have  appeared  in  the  last  two  years.  I  do 
not  know,  in  fact,  of  any  book  that  is  more  useful  to  the 
teacher  just  at  present  than  Professor  Frank  McMurry's 
How  to  Study  and  Teaching  how  to  Study.  It  is  a  book 
that  is  both  a  help  and  a  delight,  for  it  is  clear  and  well- 
organized,  and  written  in  a  vivacious  style  and  with  a 
wealth  of  concrete  illustration  that  holds  the  attention 
from  beginning  to  end.  The  chief  fault  that  I  have  to  find 
with  it  is  the  fault  that  I  have  to  find  with  almost  every 
educational  book  that  comes  from  the  press  to-day,  — 
the  tendency,  namely,  to  imply  that  the  teacher  of  to-day 
is  doing  very  little  to  solve  these  troublesome  problems. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  many  teachers  are  securing  excellent 
results  from  their  attempts  to  teach  pupils  how  to  study. 
Otherwise  we  should  not  find  so  many  energetic  young 
men  to-day  who  are  making  an  effective  individual  mas- 
tery of  the  principles  of  their  respective  trades  and  pro- 


150  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

fessions  independently  of  schools  and  teachers.  Our  atti- 
tude toward  these  questions,  far  from  being  that  of  the 
pessimist,  should  be  that  of  the  optimist.  Our  task 
should  be  to  seek  out  these  successful  teachers,  and  find 
out  how  they  do  their  work. 

Among  the  most  important  points  emphasized  by  the 
recent  writers  upon  the  art  of  study  is  the  necessity  for 
some  form  of  motivation  in  the  work  of  mastering  the 
text.  We  all  know  that  if  a  pupil  feels  a  distinct  need  for 
getting  information  out  of  a  book,  the  chances  are  that  he 
will  get  it  if  the  book  is  available  and  if  he  can  read.  To 
create  a  problem  that  will  involve  in  its  solution  the 
gaining  of  such  information  is,  therefore,  one  of  the  best 
approaches  to  a  mastery  of  the  art  of  study.  It  is,  how- 
ever, only  the  beginning.  It  furnishes  the  necessary 
energy,  but  does  not  map  out  the  path  along  which  this 
energy  is  to  be  expended.  And  this  is  where  the  greater 
emphasis,  perhaps,  is  needed. 

One  of  the  best  teachers  that  I  ever  knew  taught  the 
subject  that  we  now  call  agronomy,  —  a  branch  of  agri- 
cultural science  that  has  to  do  with  field  crops.  I  was  a 
mere  boy  when  I  sat  imder  his  instruction,  but  certain 
points  in  his  method  of  teaching  made  a  most  distinct 
impression  upon  me.  Lectures  we  had,  of  course,  for 
lecturing  was  the  orthodox  method  of  class  instruction. 
But  this  man  did  something  more  than  merely  lecture. 
He  assigned  each  one  of  his  students  a  plat  of  ground  on 
the  college  farm.    Upon  this  plat  of  ground,  a  definite 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW   TO    STUDY  I51 

experiment  was  to  be  conducted.  One  of  my  experiments 
had  to  do  with  the  smut  of  oats.  I  was  to  try  the  effect  of 
treating  the  seed  with  hot  water  in  order  to  see  whether  it 
would  prevent  the  fungus  from  later  destroying  the  ripen- 
ing grain.  The  very  nature  of  the  problem  interested 
me  intensely.  I  began  to  wonder  about  the  life-history 
of  this  fungus,  —  how  it  looked  and  how  it  germinated 
and  how  it  grew  and  wrought  its  destructive  influence. 
It  was  not  long  before  I  found  myself  spending  some  of 
my  leisure  moments  in  the  Ubrary  trying  to  find  out 
what  was  known  concerning  this  subject.  I  was  not  so 
successful  as  I  might  have  been,  but  I  am  confident  that 
I  learned  more  about  parasitic  fungi  under  the  spur  of 
that  curiosity  than  I  should  have  done  in  five  times  the 
number  of  hours  spent  in  formal,  meaningless  study. 

But  the  point  of  my  experience  is  not  that  a  problem 
interest  had  been  awakened,  but  rather  that  the  white 
heat  of  that  interest  was  not  utilized  so  completely  as  it 
might  have  been  utilized  in  fixing  upon  my  mind  some  im- 
portant details  in  the  general  method  of  running  down 
references  and  acquiring  information.  That  was  the 
moment  to  strike,  and  one  serious  defect  of  our  school  or- 
ganization to-day  is  that  most  teachers,  like  my  teacher 
at  that  time,  have  so  much  to  do  that  anything  like  indi- 
vidual attention  at  such  moments  is  out  of  the  question. 

Next  to  individual  attention,  probably,  the  best  way  to 
overcome  the  difficulty  is  to  give  class  instruction  in  these 
matters,  —  to  set  aside  a  definite  period  for  teaching 


152  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

pupils  the  technique  of  using  books.  If  one  could  arouse 
a  sufficiently  general  problem  interest,  this  sort  of  in- 
struction could  be  made  most  effective.  But  even  if  the 
problem  interest  is  not  general,  I  think  that  it  is  well  to 
assume  that  it  exists  in  some  pupils,  at  least,  and  to  give 
them  the  benefit  of  class  instruction  in  the  art  of  study, 
—  even  if  some  of  the  seed  should  fall  upon  barren  soil. 

This  aspect  of  teaching  pupils  how  to  study  is  particu- 
larly important  in  the  upper  grades  and  the  high  school, 
where  pupils  have  sufl&ciently  mastered  the  technique  of 
reading  to  be  intrusted  with  individual  problems,  and 
where  some  reference  books  are  commonly  available. 
Chief  among  these  always  is  the  dictionary,  and  to  get 
pupils  to  use  this  ponderous  volume  effectively  is  one  of 
the  important  steps  in  teaching  them  how  to  study. 
Here,  too,  it  is  easy  to  be  pedantic.  As  I  shall  insist 
strenuously  a  little  later,  the  chief  factor  in  insuring  a 
transfer  of  training  from  one  subject  to  another  is  to 
leave  in  the  pupil's  mind  a  distinct  consciousness  that 
the  method  that  he  has  been  trained  to  follow  is  worth 
while,  —  that  it  gets  results.  The  dictionary  habit  is 
likely  to  begin  and  end  within  the  schoolroom  unless 
steps  are  taken  to  insure  the  operation  of  this  factor. 
It  is  easy  to  overwork  the  dictionary  and  to  use  it 
fruitlessly,  in  so  great  a  measure,  in  fact,  that  the  pupil 
will  never  want  to  see  a  dictionary  again. 

Aside  from  the  use  of  the  dictionary,  is  the  use  of  the 
helps  that  modern  books  provide  for  finding  the  informa- 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO   STUDY  1 53 

tion  that  may  be  desired,  —  indices,  tables  of  contents, 
marginal  and  cross-references,  and  the  like.  These,  again, 
are  most  significant  in  the  work  of  the  upper  grades  and 
the  high  school,  and  here  again  if  we  wish  the  skill  that  is 
developed  in  their  use  to  be  transferred,  we  must  take 
pains  to  see  that  the  pupil  really  appreciates  their  value, 
—  that  he  realizes  their  time-saving  and  energy-saving 
functions.  I  do  not  know  that  there  is  any  better  way  to 
do  this  than  to  let  him  flounder  around  without  them  for 
a  little  so  that  his  sense  of  their  value  may  be  enhanced 
by  contrast. 

in 

Another  important  step  emphasized  by  the  recent 
writers  is  the  need  for  training  children  to  pick  out  the 
significant  features  in  the  text  or  portion  of  the  text  that 
they  are  reading.  This,  of  course,  is  work  that  is  to  be 
undertaken  from  the  very  moment  that  they  begin  to  use 
books.  How  to  do  it  effectively  is  a  puzzling  problem 
and  one  that  will  amply  repay  study  and  experimentation 
by  the  individual  teacher.  Much  studying  of  lessons  by 
teachers  and  pupils  together  will  help,  provided  that  the 
exercise  is  spirited  and  vital,  and  is  not  looked  upon  by  the 
pupils  as  an  easy  way  of  getting  out  of  recitation  work. 
McMurry  strongly  recommends  the  marking  of  books  to 
indicate  the  topic  sentences  and  the  other  salient  features. 
Personally,  I  am  sure  from  my  own  experience  that  the 
assignment  is  all-important  here,  and  that  study  ques- 
tions and  problems  which  can  be  answered  or  solved  by 


154  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

reference  to  the  text  will  help  matters  very  much ;  but 
care  must,  of  course,  be  taken  that  the  continued  use 
of  such  questions  does  not  preclude  the  pupil's  own 
mastery  of  the  art  of  study.  To  eliminate  this  danger,  it 
is  well  that  the  pupils  be  requested  frequently  to  make 
out  their  own  lists  of  questions,  and,  as  speedily  as  pos- 
sible, both  the  questions  made  by  the  pupil  and  those 
made  by  the  teacher,  should  be  replaced  by  topical 
outlines.  By  taking  care  that  the  questions  are  logically 
arranged,  —  that  is,  that  a  general  question  refer  to  the 
topic  of  the  paragraph,  and  other  subordinate  questions  to 
the  subordinate  details  of  the  paragraph,  —  the  transition 
from  the  questions  to  the  topical  outline  may  be  readily 
made.  Simultaneously  with  this  will  go  the  transition 
in  recitation  from  the  question-and-answer  type  to  the 
topical  type ;  and  when  you  have  trained  a  class  into  the 
habit  of  topical  recitation,  —  when  each  pupil  can  talk 
right  through  a  topic  (not  around  it  or  underneath  it  or 
above  it)  without  the  use  of  "pumping"  questions  by  the 
teacher,  —  you  have  gone  a  long  way  toward  developing 
the  art  of  study. 

The  transfer  of  this  training,  however,  is  quite  another 
matter.  There  are  pupils  who  can  work  up  excellent 
topical  recitations  from  their  school  text-books  but  who 
are  utterly  at  sea  in  getting  a  grasp  on  a  subject  treated 
in  other  books.  Here  again  the  problem  lies  in  getting 
the  pupil  to  see  the  method  apart  from  its  content,  and 
to  show  him  that  it  really  brings  results  that  are  worth 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW   TO    STUDY  1 55 

while.  If,  in  our  training  in  the  topical  method,  we  are 
too  formal  arid  didactic,  the  art  of  study  wUl  begin  and 
end  right  there.  It  is  here  that  the  factor  of  motiva- 
tion is  of  supreme  importance.  When  real  problems  are 
raised  which  require  for  their  solution  intelligent  reading, 
the  general  worth  of  the  method  of  study  can  be  clearly 
shown.  I  do  not  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  pupil  should 
never  be  required  to  study  unless  he  has  a  real  problem 
that  he  wishes  to  solve.  In  fact,  I  think  that  we  still 
have  a  large  place  for  the  formal,  systematic  mastery  of 
texts  by  every  pupil  in  our  schools.  I  do  contend,  how- 
ever, that  the  frequent  introduction  of  real  problems 
will  give  us  an  opportunity  to  show  the  pupil  that  the 
method  that  he  has  utilized  in  his  more  formal  school 
work  is  adequate  and  essential  to  do  the  thing  that  appeals 
to  him  as  worth  while.  Only  in  this  way,  I  believe,  can 
we  insure  that  transfer  of  training  which  is  the  impor- 
tant factor  from  our  present  standpoint. 

And  I  ought  also  to  say,  parenthetically,  that  we  should 
not  interpret  too  narrowly  this  word  "motivation." 
Let  us  remember  that  what  may  appeal  to  the  adult  as 
an  effective  motive  does  not  always  appeal  to  the  child 
as  such.  Economic  motives  are  the  most  effective,  prob- 
ably, in  our  own  adult  lives,  and  probably  very  effective 
with  high-school  pupils,  but  economic  motives  are  not 
always  strong  in  young  children,  nor  should  we  wish  them 
to  be.  It  is  not  always  true  that  the  child  will  approach  a 
school  task  sympathetically  when  he  knows  that  the  task 


156  CR.\FTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

is  an  essential  preparation  for  the  life  that  is  going  on 
about  him.  He  may  work  harder  at  a  task  in  order  to  get 
ahead  of  his  fellow-pupils  than  he  would  if  the  motive 
were  to  fit  him  to  enter  a  shop  or  a  factory.  Motive  is 
largely  a  matter  of  instinct  with  the  child,  and  he  may, 
indeed,  be  perfectly  satisfied  with  a  school  task  just  as  it 
stands.  For  example,  we  all  know  that  children  enjoy 
the  right  kind  of  drill.  Repetition,  especially  rhythmic 
repetition,  is  instinctive,  —  it  satisfies  an  inborn  need. 
Where  such  a  condition  exists,  it  is  an  obvious  waste  of 
time  to  search  about  for  more  indirect  motives.  The 
economical  thing  to  do  is  to  turn  the  ready  energy  of  the 
child  into  the  channel  that  is  already  open  to  it,  so  long  as 
this  procedure  fits  in  with  the  results  that  we  must  secure. 
I  feel  like  emphasizing  this  fact,  inasmuch  as  the  terms 
"problem  interest"  and  "motivation"  seem  most  com- 
monly to  be  associated  in  the  minds  of  teachers  with  what 
we  adults  term  "real"  or  economic  situations.  To  learn 
a  lesson  well  may  often  be  a  sufficient  motive,  —  may 
often  constitute  a  "real"  situation  to  the  child,  —  and  if 
it  does,  it  will  serve  very  effectively  our  purposes  in  this 
other  task,  —  namely,  getting  the  pupil  to  see  the  worth 
of  the  method  that  we  ask  him  to  employ. 

IV 

There  are  one  or  two  points  of  a  general  nature  in 
connection  with  the  art  of  study  that  should  be  empha- 
sized.    In  the  first  place,  the  upper-grade  and  high-school 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO    STUDY  1 57 

pupils  are,  I  believe,  mature  enough  to  appreciate  in  some 
degree  what  knowledge  really  means.  One  of  the  falla- 
cies of  which  I  was  possessed  on  completing  my  work  in 
the  lower  schools  was  the  belief  that  there  are  some 
men  who  know  everything.  I  naturally  concluded  that 
the  superintendent  of  schools  was  one  of  these  men; 
the  family  physician  was  another;  the  leading  man  in 
my  town  was  a  third ;  and  any  one  who  ever  wrote  a  book 
was  put,  ex  officio  so  to  speak,  into  this  class  without  fur- 
ther inquiry.  One  of  the  most  astounding  revelations 
of  my  later  education  was  to  learn  that,  after  all,  the 
amount  of  real  knowledge  in  this  world,  voluminous 
though  it  seems,  is  after  all  pitiably  small.  Of  opinion 
and  speculation  we  have  a  surplus,  but  of  real,  downright, 
hard  fact,  our  capital  is  still  most  insignificant.  And  I 
wonder  if  something  could  not  be  done  in  the  high  school 
to  teach  pupils  the  difference  between  fact  and  opinion, 
and  something  also  of  the  slow,  laborious  process  through 
which  real  facts  are  accumulated.  How  many  mistakes 
of  life  are  due  to  the  lack  of  the  judicial  attitude  right 
here.  What  mistakes  we  all  make  when  we  try  to 
evaluate  writings  outside  of  our  own  special  field  of 
knowledge  or  activity.  Nothing  depresses  me  to-day 
quite  so  much  as  the  readiness  with  which  laymen  mis- 
take opinion  for  fact  in  the  field  of  psychology  and  edu- 
cation, —  and  I  suppose  that  my  own  hasty  acceptance 
of  statements  in  other  fields  would  have  a  similar  effect 
upon  the  specialists  of  those  fields. 


158  CRAPTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

Can  general  education  help  us  out  at  all  in  this  matter  ? 
I  have  only  one  or  two  suggestions  to  make,  and  even 
these  may  not  be  worth  a  great  deal.  In  the  recent 
Polar  controversy,  the  sympathies  of  the  general  public 
were,  I  think,  at  the  outset  with  Cook.  This  was  per- 
haps, natural,  and  yet  the  trained  mind  ought  to  have 
withheld  judgment  for  one  reason  if  for  no  other,  —  and 
that  one  reason  was  Peary's  long  Arctic  service,  his  un- 
questioned mastery  of  the  technique  of  polar  travel, 
his  general  reputation  for  honesty  and  caution  in  advanc- 
ing opinions.  By  all  the  lessons  that  history  teaches, 
Peary's  word  should  have  had  precedence  over  Cook's,  for 
Peary  was  a  specialist,  while  Cook  was  only  an  amateur. 
And  yet  the  general  public  discounted  entirely  those 
lessons,  and  trusted  rather  the  novice,  with  what  results 
it  is  now  unnecessary  to  review,  —  and  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten,  the  results  will  be  the  same. 

Could  we  not,  as  part  of  our  work  in  training  pupils  to 
study,  also  teach  them  to  give  some  sort  of  an  evaluation 
J;o  the  authorities  that  they  consult?  Could  we  not 
teach  them  that,  in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  at  least,  the  man 
who  has  the  message  most  worth  listening  to  is  the  man 
who  has  worked  the  hardest  and  the  longest  in  his  field, 
and  who  enjoys  the  best  reputation  among  his  fellow- 
workers  ?  Sometimes,  I  admit,  the  rule  does  not  work, 
and  especially  with  men  whose  reputations  as  authorities 
have  outlived  their  period  of  productivity,  but  even  this 
mistake   could   be   guarded   against.     Certainly   high- 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO   STUDY  1 59 

school  pupils  ought  distinctly  to  understand  that  the 
authors  of  their  text-books  are  not  always  the  most 
learned  men  or  the  greatest  authorities  in  the  fields  that 
they  treat.  The  use  of  biographical  dictionaries,  of  the 
books  that  are  appearing  in  various  fields  giving  brief 
biographies  and  often  some  authoritative  estimate  of  the 
workers  in  these  fields,  is  important  in  this  connection. 

McMurry  recommends  that  pupils  be  encouraged  to 
take  a  critical  attitude  toward  the  principles  they  are  set 
to  master,  —  to  judge,  as  he  says,  the  soundness  and 
worth  of  the  statements  that  they  learn.  This  is  certainly 
good  advice,  and  wherever  the  pupil  can  intelligently 
deal  with  real  sources,  it  is  well  frequently  to  have  him 
check  up  the  statements  of  secondary  sources.  But, 
after  all,  this  is  the  age  of  the  specialist,  and  to  trust  one's 
untrained  judgment  in  a  field  remote  from  one's  knowl- 
edge and  experience  is  likely  to  lead  to  unfortunate  re- 
sults. We  have  all  sorts  of  illustrations  from  the  igno- 
rant man  who  will  not  trust  the  physician  or  the  health 
official  in  matters  of  sanitation;  because  he  lacks  the 
proper  perspective,  he  jumps  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
specialist  is  a  fraud.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  supplement 
McMurry's  suggestion  by  the  one  that  I  have  just  made, 
—  that  is,  that  we  train  pupils  how  to  evaluate  authori- 
ties as  well  as  facts,  —  how  to  protect  themselves  from  the 
quack  and  the  faker  who  live  like  parasites  upon  the 
ignorance  of  laymen,  both  in  medicine,  in  education,  and 
in  Arctic  exploration  ? 


l6o         CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

And  I  believe  that  there  is  a  place,  also,  in  the  high 
school,  especially  in  connection  with  the  work  in  science 
and  history,  for  giving  pupils  some  idea  of  how  knowledge 
is  really  gained.  I  should  not  teach  science  exclusively 
by  the  laboratory  method,  nor  history  exclusively  by  the 
source  method,  but  I  should  certainly  take  frequent  op- 
portunity to  let  pupils  work  through  some  simple  prob- 
lems from  the  beginnings,  struggling  with  the  conditions 
somewhat  as  the  discoverers  themselves  struggled;  fol- 
lowing up  "blind  leads"  and  toilsomely  returning  for  a 
fresh  start;  meeting  with  discouragement;  and  finally 
feeUng,  perhaps,  some  of  the  joy  that  comes  with  success 
after  struggle ;  and  all  in  order  that  they  may  know  better 
and  appreciate  more  fully  the  cost  and  the  worth  of  that 
intellectual  heritage  which  the  master-minds  of  the  world 
have  bequeathed  to  the  present  and  the  future.  And 
along  with  this,  as  they  master  the  principles  of  science, 
let  them  learn  also  the  human  side  of  science,  —  the  story 
of  Newton,  withholding  his  great  discovery  for  years 
until  he  could  be  absolutely  certain  that  it  was  a  law; 
until  he  could  get  the  very  commonplace  but  obstreper- 
ous moon  into  harmony  with  his  law  of  falling  bodies ;  — 
the  story  of  Darwin,  with  his  twenty-odd  years  of  the 
most  patient  and  persistent  kind  of  toil ;  delving  into 
the  most  impromising  materials,  reading  the  driest 
books,  always  on  the  lookout  for  the  facts  that  would 
point  the  way  to  the  explanation  of  species ;  —  the 
story  of  Morse  and  his  bitter  struggle  against  poverty, 


TRAINING   CHILDREN   HOW  TO   STUDY  l6l 

and  sickness,  and  innumerable  disappointments  up 
to  the  time  when,  in  advancing  years,  success  crowned 
his  efiforts. 

All  this  may  seem  very  remote  from  the  prosaic  task  of 
teaching  pupils  how  to  study ;  and  yet  it  will  lend  its  in- 
fluence toward  the  attainment  of  that  end.  For,  after 
all,  we  must  lead  our  pupils  to  see  that  some  books,  in 
spite  of  their  formidable  difiiculties  and  their  apparent 
abstractions,  are  still  close  to  life,  and  that  the  truth  which 
lies  in  books,  and  which  we  wish  them  to  assimilate,  has 
been  wrought  out  of  human  experience,  and  not  brought 
down  miraculously  from  some  remote  storehouse  of  wis- 
dom that  is  accessible  only  to  the  elect.  We  poke  a  good 
deal  of  fun  at  book  learning  nowadays,  and  there  is  a 
pedantic  type  of  book  learning  that  certainly  deserves  all 
the  ridicule  that  can  be  heaped  upon  it.  But  it  is  not 
wise  to  carry  satire  and  ridicule  too  far  in  any  direction, 
and  especially  when  it  may  mean  creating  in  young  minds 
a  distrust  of  the  force  that,  more  than  any  other  single 
factor,  has  operated  to  raise  man  above  the  savage. 

V 

To  teach  the  child  the  art  of  study  means,  then,  that 
we  take  every  possible  occasion  to  impress  upon  his 
mind  the  value  of  study  as  a  means  of  solving  real  and 
vital  problems,  and  that,  with  this  as  an  incentive,  we 
graduaUy  and  persistently  and  systematically  lead  him 
to  grasp  the  method  of  study  as  a  method,  —  that  is, 

M 


1 62  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

slowly  and  gradually  to  abstract  the  method  from  the 
particular  cases  to  which  he  applies  it  and  to  emotion- 
alize it,  —  to  make  it  an  ideal.  Only  in  this  way,  so 
far  as  we  may  know,  can  the  art  be  so  generalized  as 
to  find  ready  application  in  his  later  Ufe.  To  this  end, 
it  is  essential  that  the  steps  be  taken  repeatedly,  —  not 
begun  to-day  and  never  thought  of  again  until  next 
year,  —  but  daily,  even  hourly,  insuring  a  little  growth. 
This  means,  too,  not  only  that  the  teacher  must  pos- 
sess a  high  degree  of  patience,  —  that  first  principle  of 
pedagogic  skill,  —  but  also  that  he  have  a  comprehen- 
sive grasp  of  the  problem,  and  the  ability  to  separate 
the  woods  from  the  trees,  so  that,  to  him  at  least,  the 
chief  aim  will  never  be  lost  to  view. 

But,  even  at  its  best,  the  task  is  a  severe  one,  and 
we  need,  here  as  elsewhere  in  education,  carefully  con- 
trolled tests  and  experiments,  that  will  enable  us  to  get 
at  the  facts.  Above  all,  let  me  protest  against  the  in- 
cidental theory  of  teaching  pupils  how  to  study.  To 
adopt  the  incidental  policy  in  any  field  of  education,  — 
whether  in  arithmetic,  or  spelling,  or  reading ;  whether 
in  developing  the  power  of  reasoning  or  the  memory, 
or  the  art  of  study,  —  is  to  throw  wide  open  the  doors 
that  lead  to  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  to  lax  methods, 
to  easy  honors,  to  weakened  mental  fiber,  and  to  scamped 
work.  Just  as  the  pernicious  doctrine  of  the  subcon- 
scious is  the^  first  and  last  refuge  of  the  psycho-faker, 
so  incidental  learning  is  the  first  and  last  refuge  of  soft 


TRAINING   CHILDREN  HOW  TO   STUDY  1 63 

pedagogy.  And  I  mean  by  incidental  learning,  going 
at  a  teaching  task  in  an  indolent,  unreflective,  hit-or- 
miss  fashion  in  the  hope  that  somehow  or  other  from 
this  process  will  emerge  the  very  definite  results  that 
we  desire. 


rx 

A  Plea  for  the  Definite  in  Education^ 


One  way  to  be  definite  in  education  is  to  formulate 
as  clearly  as  we  can  the  aims  that  we  hope  to  realize  in 
every  stage  of  our  work.  The  task  of  teaching  is  so 
complex  that,  unless  we  strive  earnestly  and  persistently 
to  reduce  it  to  the  simplest  possible  terms,  we  are  bound 
to  work  blindly  and  ineffectively. 

It  is  only  one  phase  of  this  topic  that  I  wish  to  dis- 
cuss with  you  this  morning.  My  plea  for  the  definite 
in  education  will  be  Umited  not  only  to  the  field  of  edu- 
cational aims  and  values,  but  to  a  small  comer  of  that 
field.  Your  morning's  program  has  dealt  with  the 
problem  of  teaching  history  in  the  elementary  school. 
I  should  like,  if  you  are  willing,  to  confine  my  remarks 
to  this  topic,  and  to  attack  the  specific  question,  What 
is  the  history  that  we  teach  in  the  grades  to  do  for  the 
pupil  ?  I  wish  to  make  this  limitation,  not  only  because 
what  I  have  to  say  will  be  related  to  the  other  topics 
on  the  program,  but  also  because  this  very  subject  of 

•  An  address  delivered  March  i8,  1910,  before  the  Central  Illinois 
Teachers'  Association. 

164 


A   PLEA   FOR   THE   DEFINITE    IN   EDUCATION        1 65 

history  is  one  which  the  lack  of  a  definite  standard  of 
educational  value  has  been  keenly  felt. 

I  should  admit  at  the  outset  that  my  interest  in  his- 
tory is  purely  educational.  I  have  had  no  special 
training  in  historical  research.  As  you  may  perhaps 
infer  from  my  discussion,  my  acquaintance  with  his- 
torical facts  is  very  far  from  comprehensive.  I  speak 
as  a  layman  in  history,  —  and  I  do  it  openly  and,  per- 
haps, a  little  defiantly,  for  I  believe  that  the  last  person 
to  pass  adequate  judgment  upon  the  general  educational 
value  of  a  given  department  of  knowledge  is  a  man 
who  has  made  the  department  a  life  study.  I  have 
little  faith  in  what  the  mathematician  has  to  say  regard- 
ing the  educational  value  of  mathematics  for  the  average 
elementary  pupil,  because  he  is  a  special  pleader  and  his 
conclusions  cannot  escape  the  coloring  of  his  prejudice. 
I  once  knew  an  enthusiastic  brain  specialist  who  main- 
tained that,  in  every  grade  of  the  elementary  school, 
instruction  should  be  required  in  the  anatomy  of  the 
human  brain.  That  man  was  an  expert  in  his  own  line. 
He  knew  more  about  the  structure  of  the  brain  than 
any  other  living  man.  But  knowing  more  about  brain 
morphology  also  implied  that  he  knew  less  about  many 
other  things,  and  among  the  things  that  he  knew  little 
about  were  the  needs  and  capacities  of  children  in  the 
elementary  school.  He  was  a  special  pleader;  he  had 
been  dealing  with  his  special  subject  so  long  that  it  had 
assumed  a  disproportionate  value  in  his  eyes.     Brain 


1 66  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING' 

morphology  had  given  him  fame,  honor,  and  worldly 
emoluments.  Naturally  he  would  have  an  exaggerated 
notion  of  its  value. 

It  is  the  same  with  any  other  specialist.  As  special- 
ists in  education,  you  and  I  are  likely  to  overemphasize 
the  importance  of  the  common  school  in  the  scheme  of 
creation.  Personally  I  am  convinced  that  the  work  of 
elementary  education  is  the  most  profoundly  significant 
work  in  the  world ;  and  yet  I  can  realize  that  I  should 
be  no  fit  person  to  make  comparisons  if  the  welfare  of  a 
number  of  other  professions  and  callings  were  at  stake. 
I  should  let  an  unbiased  judge  make  the  final  deter- 
mination. 

n 

The  first  question  for  which  we  should  seek  an  answer 
in  connection  with  the  value  of  any  school  subject  is 
this :  How  does  it  influence  conduct  ?  Let  me  insist 
at  the  outset  that  we  cannot  be  definite  by  saying 
simply  that  we  teach  history  in  order  to  impart  in- 
struction. If  there  is  one  thing  upon  which  we  are  all 
agreed  to-day  it  is  this:  that  it  is  what  our  pupils  do 
that  counts,  not  what  they  know.  The  knowledge 
that  they  may  possess  has  value  only  in  so  far  as  it 
may  directly  or  indirectly  be  turned  over  into  action. 

Let  us  not  be  mistaken  upon  this  point.  Knowledge 
is  of  the  utmost  importance,  but  it  is  important  only  as 
a  means  to  an  end  —  and  the  end  is  condu9t.     If  my 


A  PLEA   FOR   THE   DEFINITE    IN   EDUCATION        1 67 

pupils  act  in  no  way  more  efl5dently  after  they  have 
received  my  instruction  than  they  would  have  acted 
had  they  never  come  under  my  influence,  then  my 
work  as  a  teacher  is  a  failure.  If  their  conduct  is  less 
efl&cient,  then  my  work  is  not  only  a  failure,  —  it  is  a 
catastrophe.  The  knowledge  that  I  impart  may  be 
absolutely  true;  the  interest  that  I  arouse  may  be 
intense ;  the  affection  that  my  pupils  have  for  me  may 
be  genuine ;  but  all  these  are  but  means  to  an  end,  and 
if  the  end  is  not  attained,  the  means  have  been  futile. 

We  have  faith  that  the  materials  which  we  pour  in 
at  the  hopper  of  sense  impression  will  come  out  sooner 
or  later  at  the  spout  of  reaction,  transformed  by  some 
mysterious  process  into  eflicient  conduct.  While  the 
machinery  of  the  process,  Uke  the  mills  of  the  gods, 
certainly  grinds  slowly,  it  is  some  consolation  to  beUeve 
that,  at  any  rate,  it  does  grind ;  and  we  are  perhaps  fain 
to  believe  that  the  exceeding  fineness  of  the  grist  is 
responsible  for  our  failure  to  detect  at  the  spout  all  of 
the  elements  that  we  have  been  so  careful  to  pour  in 
at  the  hopper.  What  I  should  like  to  do  is  to  examine 
this  grinding  process  rather  carefully,  —  to  gain,  if 
possible,  some  definite  notion  of  the  kind  of  grist  we 
should  like  to  produce,  and  then  to  see  how  the  ma- 
chinery may  be  made  to  produce  this  grist,  and  in  what 
proportions  we  must  mix  the  material  that  we  pour  into 
the  hopper  in  order  to  gain  the  desired  result. 

I  have  said  that  we  must  ask  of  every  subject  that 


l68  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

we  teach,  How  does  it  influence  conduct?  Now  when 
we  ask  this  question  concerning  history  a  variety  of 
answers  are  at  once  proposed.  One  group  of  people 
will  assert  that  the  facts  of  history  have  value  because 
they  can  be  directly  applied  to  the  needs  of  contem- 
porary Hfe.  History,  they  wiU  tell  us,  records  the 
experiences  of  the  race,  and  if  we  are  to  act  intelligently 
we  must  act  upon  the  basis  of  this  experience.  History 
informs  us  of  the  mistakes  that  former  generations  have 
made  in  adjusting  themselves  to  the  world.  If  we 
know  history,  we  can  avoid  these  mistakes.  This  t3^e 
of  reasoning  may  be  said  to  ascribe  a  utilitarian  value 
to  the  study  of  history.  It  assumes  that  historical 
knowledge  is  directly  and  immediately  appHcable  to 
vital  problems  of  the  present  day. 

Now  the  difficulty  with  this  value,  as  with  many 
others  that  seem  to  have  the  sanction  of  reason,  is  that 
it  does  not  possess  the  sanction  of  practical  test.  While 
knowledge  doubtless  affects  in  some  way  the  present 
policy  of  our  own  government,  it  would  be  very  hard 
to  prove  that  the  influence  is  in  any  way  a  direct  in- 
fluence. It  is  extremely  doubtful  whether  the  knowl- 
edge that  the  voters  have  of  the  history  of  their  coun- 
try will  be  recalled  and  apphed  at  the  ballot  box  next 
November.  I  do  not  say  that  the  study  of  history 
that  has  been  going  on  in  the  common  schools  for  a 
generation  will  be  entirely  without  effect  upon  the 
coming  election.     I  simply  maintain  that  this  influence 


A  PLEA  FOR  THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION        1 69 

will  be  indirect,  —  but  I  believe  that  it  will  be  none 
the  less  profound.  One's  vote  at  the  next  election  will 
be  determined  largely  by  immediate  and  present  con- 
ditions. But  the  way  in  which  one  interprets  these 
conditions  cannot  help  being  profoundly  influenced  by 
one's  historical  study  or  lack  of  such  study. 

If  it  is  clear,  then,  that  the  study  of  history  cannot 
be  justified  upon  a  purely  utilitarian  basis,  we  may 
pass  to  the  consideration  of  other  values  that  have  been 
proposed.  The  speciaUst  in  history,  whose  right  to 
legislate  upon  this  matter  I  have  just  called  into  ques- 
tion, will  probably  emphasize  the  disciplinary  value  of 
this  study.  SpeciaUsts  are  commonly  enthusiastic  over 
the  discipUnary  value  of  their  special  subjects.  Their 
own  minds  have  been  so  well  developed  by  the  pursuit 
of  their  special  branches  that  they  are  impelled  to  rec- 
ommend the  same  discipline  for  all  minds.  Again,  we 
must  not  blame  the  speciaUst  in  history,  for  you  and  I 
think  the  same  about  our  own  special  type  of  activity. 

From  the  disciplinary  point  of  view,  the  study  of 
history  is  supposed  to  give  one  the  mastery  of  a  special 
method  of  reasoning.  Historical  method  involves,  above 
all  else,  the  careful  sifting  of  evidence,  the  minutest 
scrutiny  of  sources  in  order  to  judge  whether  or  not  the 
records  are  authentic,  and  the  utmost  care  in  coming 
to  conclusions.  Now  it  will  be  generally  agreed  that 
these  are  desirable  types  of  skill  to  possess  whether  one 
is  an  historian  or  a  lawyer  or  a  teacher  or  a  man  of 


lyO  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

business.  And  yet,  as  in  all  types  of  discipline,  the 
difficulty  lies,  not  so  much  in  acquiring  the  specific 
skill,  as  in  transferring  the  skill  thus  acquired  to  other 
fields  of  activity.  Skill  of  any  sort  is  made  up  of  a 
multitude  of  little  specific  habits,  and  it  is  a  current 
theory  that  habit  functions  effectively  only  in  the 
specific  situation  in  which  it  has  been  built  up,  or  in 
situations  closely  similar.  But  whether  this  is  true  or 
not  it  is  obvious  that  the  teaching  of  elementary  history 
provides  very  few  opportunities  for  this  type  of  training. 

A  third  view  of  the  way  in  which  historical  knowl- 
edge is  thought  to  work  into  action  may  be  discussed 
under  the  head  of  the  cultural  value.  History,  like 
literature,  is  commonly  assimied  to  give  to  the  individual 
who  studies  it,  a  certain  amount  of  that  commodity 
which  the  world  calls  culture.  Precisely  what  culture 
consists  in,  no  one,  apparently,  is  ready  to  tell  us,  but 
we  all  admit  that  it  is  real,  if  not  tangible  and  definable, 
nor  can  we  deny  that  the  individual  who  possesses 
culture  conducts  himself,  as  a  rule,  differently  from  the 
individual  who  does  not  possess  it.  In  other  words, 
culture  is  a  practical  thing,  for  the  only  things  that  are 
practical  are  the  things  that  modify  or  control  human 
action. 

It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  study  of  history  does  add 
to  this  intangible  something  that  we  call  "culture," 
but  the  difficulty  with  this  value  lies  in  the  fact  that, 
even  after  we  have  accepted  it  as  valid,  we  are  in  no 


A   PLEA  FOR  THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION         I71 

way  better  off  regarding  our  methods.  Like  many 
other  theories,  its  truth  is  not  to  be  denied,  but  its 
truth  gives  us  no  inkling  of  a  solution  of  our  problem. 
What  we  need  is  an  educational  value  of  history,  the 
recognition  of  which  will  enable  us  to  formulate  a 
method  for  realizing  the  value. 

m 

The  imsatisfactory  character  of  these  three  values 
that  have  been  proposed  for  history  —  the  utilitarian, 
the  disciplinary,  and  the  cultural  —  is  typical  of  the 
values  that  have  been  proposed  for  other  subjects. 
Unless  the  aim  of  teaching  any  given  subject  can  be 
stated  in  definite  terms,  the  teacher  must  work  very 
largely  in  the  dark;  his  efforts  must  be  largely  of  the 
"  hit-or-miss"  order.  The  desired  value  may  be  realized 
under  these  conditions,  but,  if  it  is  realized,  it  is  mani- 
festly through  accident,  not  through  iateUigent  design. 
It  is  needless  to  point  out  the  waste  that  such  a  blunder- 
ing and  haphazard  adjustment  entails.  We  aU  know 
how  much  of  our  teaching  fails  to  hit  the  mark,  even 
when  we  are  clear  concerning  the  result  that  we  desire ; 
we  can  only  conjecture  how  much  of  the  remainder  fails 
of  effect  because  we  are  hazy  and  obscure  concerning  its 
purpose. 

Let  us  return  to  our  original  basic  principle  and  see 
what  light  it  may  throw  upon  our  problem.  We  have 
said  that  the  efficiency  of  teaching  must  always  be 


172  -CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

measured  by  the  degree  in  which  the  pupil's  conduct  is 
modified.  Taking  conduct  as  our  base,  then,  let  us 
reason  back  and  see  what  factors  control  conduct. 
and,  if  possible,  how  these  "  controls "  may  be  influ- 
enced by  the  processes  of  education  working  through 
the  lesson  in  history. 

I  shall  start  with  a  very  simple  and  apparently  trivial 
example.  When  I  was  hving  in  the  Far  West,  I  came 
to  know  something  of  the  Chinese,  who  are  largely  en- 
gaged, as  you  know,  in  domestic  service  in  that  part  of 
the  country.  Most  of  the  Chinese  servants  that  I  met 
corresponded  very  closely  with  what  we  read  concerning 
Chinese  character.  We  have  all  heard  of  the  Chinese 
servant's  unswerving  adherence  to  a  routine  that  he  has 
once  established.  They  say  in  the  West  that  when  a 
housewife  gives  her  Chinese  servant  an  object  lesson  in 
the  preparation  of  a  certain  dish,  she  must  always  be 
very  careful  to  make  her  demonstration  perfect  the 
first  time.  If,  inadvertently,  she  adds  one  egg  too 
many,  she  will  find  that,  in  spite  of  her  protestations, 
the  superfluous  egg  will  always  go  into  that  preparation 
forever  afterward.  From  what  I  know  of  the  typical 
Oriental,  I  am  sure  that  this  warning  is  not  over- 
drawn. 

Now  here  is  a  bit  of  conduct,  a  bit  of  adjustment, 
that  characterizes  the  Chinese  cook.  Not  only  that, 
but,  in  a  general  way,  it  is  peculiar  to  all  Chinese,  and 
hence  may  be  called  a  national  trait.     We  might  call 


A  PLEA  FOR  THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION         1 73 

it  a  vigorous  national  prejudice  in  favor  of  precedent. 
But  whatever  we  call  it,  it  is  a  very  dominant  force  in 
Chinese  Ufe.  It  is  the  trait  that,  perhaps  more  than 
any  other,  distinguishes  Chinese  conduct  from  Euro- 
pean or  American  conduct.  Now  one  might  think  this 
trait  to  be  instinctive,  —  to  be  bred  in  the  bone  rather 
than  acquired,  —  but  this  I  am  convinced  is  not  alto- 
gether true.  At  least  one  Chinese  whom  I  knew  did 
not  possess  it  at  all.  He  was  born  on  a  western  ranch 
and  his  parents  died  soon  after  his  birth.  He  was 
brought  up  with  the  children  of  the  ranch  owner,  and 
is  now  a  prosperous  rancher  himself.  He  lacks  every 
characteristic  that  we  commonly  associate  with  the 
Chinese,  save  only  the  physical  features.  His  hair  is 
straight,  his  skin  is  safifron,  his  eyes  are  slightly  aslant, 
—  but  that  is  all.  As  far  as  his  conduct  goes,  —  and 
that  is  the  essential  thing,  —  he  is  an  American.  In 
other  words,  his  traits,  his  tendencies  to  action,  are 
American  and  not  Chinese.  His  life  represents  the 
triumph  of  environment  over  heredity. 

When  you  visit  England  you  find  yourselves  among  a 
people  who  speak  the  same  language  that  you  speak,  — 
or,  perhaps  it  would  be  better  to  say,  somewhat  the 
same;  at  least  you  can  understand  each  other.  In  a 
great  many  respects,  the  Englishman  and  the  American 
are  similar  in  their  traits,  but  in  a  great  many  other 
respects  they  differ  radically.  You  cannot,  from  your 
knowledge  of  American  traits,  judge  what  an  English- 


174  CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

man's  conduct  will  be  upon  every  occasion.  If  you 
happened  on  Piccadilly  of  a  rainy  morning,  for  example, 
you  would  see  the  English  clerks  and  storekeepers  and 
professional  men  riding  to  their  work  on  the  omnibuses 
that  thread  their  way  slowly  through  the  crowded 
thoroughfare.  No  matter  how  rainy  the  morning,  these 
men  would  be  seated  on  the  tops  of  the  omnibuses, 
although  the  interior  seats  might  be  quite  unoccupied. 
No  matter  how  rainy  the  morning,  many  of  these  men 
would  be  faultlessly  attired  in  top  hats  and  frock  coats, 
and  there  they  would  sit  through  the  drizzling  rain, 
protecting  themselves  most  inadequately  with  their 
opened  umbrellas.  Now  there  is  a  bit  of  conduct  that 
you  cannot  find  duplicated  in  any  American  city.  It 
is  a  national  habit,  —  or,  perhaps,  it  would  be  better 
to  say,  it  is  an  expression  of  a  national  trait,  —  and 
that  national  trait  is  a  prejudice  in  favor  of  conven- 
tion. It  is  the  thing  to  do,  and  the  typical  English- 
man does  it,  just  as,  when  he  is  sent  as  civil  governor 
to  some  lonely  outpost  in  India,  with  no  companions 
except  scantily  clad  native  servants,  he  always  dresses 
conscientiously  for  dinner  and  sits  down  to  his  solitary 
meal  clad  in  the  conventional  swallow-tail  coat  of 
civilization. 

Now  the  way  in  which  a  Chinese  cook  prepares  a 
custard,  or  the  way  in  which  an  English  merchant  rides 
in  an  omnibus,  may  be  trivial  and  unimportant  matters 
in  themselves,  and  yet,  like  the  straw  that  shows  which 


A  PLEA   FOR  THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION         1 75 

way  the  wind  blows,  they  are  indicative  of  vast  and 
profound  currents.  The  conservatism  of  the  Chinese 
empire  is  only  a  larger  and  rnore  comprehensive  ex- 
pression of  the  same  trait  or  prejudice  that  leads  the 
cook  to  copy  literally  his  model.  The  present  educa- 
tional situation  in  England  is  only  another  expression 
of  that  same  prejudice  in  favor  of  the  established  order^ 
which  finds  expression  in  the  merchant  on  the  Piccadilly 
omnibus. 

Whenever  you  pass  from  one  country  to  another  you 
will  find  this  difference  in  tendencies  to  action.  In 
Germany,  for  example,  you  will  find  something  that 
amounts  almost  to  a  national  fervor  for  economy  and 
frugality.  You  will  find  it  expressing  itself  in  the  care 
with  which  the  German  housewife  does  her  marketing. 
You  will  find  it  expressing  itself  in  the  intensive  methods 
of  agriculture,  through  which  scarcely  a  square  inch  of 
arable  land  is  permitted  to  lie  fallow,  —  through  which, 
for  example,  even  the  shade  trees  by  the  roadside  fur- 
nish fruit  as  well  as  shade,  and  are  annually  rented  for 
their  fruit  value  to  industrious  members  of  the  com- 
munity, —  and  it  is  said  in  one  section  of  Germany 
that  the  only  people  known  to  steal  fruit  from  these 
trees  along  the  lonely  country  roads  are  American 
tourists,  who,  you  will  see,  also  have  their  peculiar 
standards  of  conduct.  You  will  find  this  same  fervor 
for  frugality  and  economy  expressing  itself  most  ex- 
tensively in  that  splendid  forest  policy  by  means  of 


176         CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

which  the  German  states  have  conserved  their  magnifi- 
cent timber  resources. 

But,  whatever  its  expression,  it  is  the  same  trait,  — 
a  trait  born  of  generations  of  struggle  with  an  un- 
yielding soil,  and  yet  a  trait  which,  combined  with  the 
German  fervor  for  science  and  education,  has  made 
possible  the  marvelous  progress  that  Germany  has 
made  within  the  last  half  century. 

What  do  we  mean  by  national  traits?  Simply  this: 
prejudices  or  tendencies  toward  certain  typical  forms 
of  conduct,  common  to  a  given  people.  It  is  this  com- 
munity of  conduct  that  constitutes  a  nation.  A  coun- 
try whose  people  have  different  standards  of  action 
must  be  a  divided  country,  as  our  own  American  history 
sufficiently  demonstrates.  Unless  upon  the  vital  ques- 
tions of  human  adjustment,  men  are  able  to  agree,  they 
cannot  live  together  in  peace.  If  we  are  a  distinctive 
and  unique  nation,  —  if  we  hold  a  distinctive  and 
imique  place  among  the  nations  of  the  globe,  —  it  is 
because  you  and  I  and  the  other  inhabitants  of  our 
country  have  developed  distinctive  and  unique  ideals 
and  prejudices  and  standards,  all  of  which  unite  to 
produce  a  community  of  conduct.  And  once  granting 
that  our  national  characteristics  are  worth  while,  that 
they  constitute  a  distinct  advance  over  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  other  nations  of  the  earth,  it  becomes  the 
manifest  duty  of  the  school  to  do  its  share  in  perpetuat- 
ing these  ideals  and  prejudices  and  standards.     Once 


A  PLEA  FOR  THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION        1 77 

let  these  atrophy  through  disuse,  once  let  them  fail  of 
transmission  because  of  the  decay  of  the  home,  or  the 
decay  of  the  school,  or  the  decay  of  the  social  institu- 
tions that  typify  and  express  them,  and  our  country 
must  go  the  way  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and,  although 
our  blood  may  thereafter  continue  pure  and  unmixed, 
and  our  physical  characteristics  may  be  passed  on  from 
generation  to  generation  unchanged  in  form,  our  nation 
will  be  only  a  memory,  and  its  history  ancient  history. 
Some  of  the  Greeks  of  to-day  are  the  lineal  descendants 
of  the  Athenians  and  Spartans,  but  the  ancient  Greek 
standards  of  conduct,  the  Greek  ideals,  died  twenty 
centuries  ago,  to  be  resurrected,  it  is  true,  by  the  renais- 
sance, and  to  enjoy  the  glorious  privilege  of  a  new  and 
wider  sphere  of  life,  —  but  among  an  alien  people,  and 
under  a  northern  sun. 

And  so  the  true  aim  of  the  study  of  history  in  the 
elementary  school  is  not  the  realization  of  its  utilitarian, 
its  cultural,  or  its  disciplinary  value.  It  is  not  a  mere 
assimilation  of  facts  concerning  historical  events,  nor 
the  memorizing  of  dates,  nor  the  picturing  of  battles, 
nor  the  learning  of  lists  of  presidents,  —  although  each 
of  these  factors  has  its  place  in  fulfilling  the  function  of 
historical  study.  The  true  function  of  national  history 
in  our  elementary  schools  is  to  establish  in  the  pupils* 
minds  those  ideals  and  standards  of  action  which  dif- 
ferentiate the  American  people  from  the  rest  of  the 
world,  and  especially  to  fortify  these  ideals  and  stand- 


178  CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN   TEACHING 

ards  by  a  description  of  the  events  and  conditions 
through  which  they  developed.  It  is  not  the  facts  of 
history  that  are  to  be  applied  to  the  problems  of  life; 
it  is  rather  the  emotional  attitude,  the  point  of  view, 
that  comes  not  from  memorizing,  but  from  appreciating, 
the  facts.  A  mere  fact  has  never  yet  had  a  profound 
influence  over  human  conduct.  A  principle  that  is 
accepted  by  the  head  and  not  by  the  heart  has  never 
yet  stained  a  battle  field  nor  turned  the  tide  of  a  popu- 
lar election.  Men  act,  not  as  they  think,  but  as  they 
feel,  and  it  is  not  the  idea,  but  the  ideal,  that  is  im- 
portant in  history. 

IV 

But  what  are  the  specific  ideals  and  standards  for 
which  our  nation  stands  and  which  distinguish,  in  a 
very  broad  but  yet  explicit  manner,  our  conduct  from 
the  conduct  of  other  peoples?  If  we  were  to  ask  this 
question  of  an  older  country,  we  could  more  easily 
obtain  an  answer,  for  in  the  older  countries  the  national 
ideals  have,  in  many  cases,  reached  an  advanced  point 
of  self-consciousness.  The  educational  machinery  of 
the  Grerman  empire,  for  example,  turns  upon  this  prob- 
lem of  impressing  the  national  ideals.  It  is  one  aim  of 
the  ofl5cial  courses  of  study,  for  instance,  that  history 
shall  be  so  taught  that  the  pupils  will  gain  an  overweening 
reverence  for  the  reigning  house  of  Hohenzollem.  Nor 
is  that  newer  ideal  of  national  unity  which  had  its  seed 


A  PLEA  FOR   THE   DEFINITE   IN  EDUCATION        1 79 

sown  in  the  Franco-Prussian  War  in  any  danger  of  neg- 
lect by  the  watchful  eye  of  the  government.  Not  only 
must  the  teacher  impress  it  upon  every  occasion,  but 
every  attempt  is  also  made  to  bring  it  daily  fresh  to  the 
minds  of  the  people  through  great  monuments  and  me- 
morials. Scarcely  a  hamlet  is  so  small  that  it  does  not 
possess  its  Bismarck  Denkmal,  often  situated  upon  some 
commanding  hill,  telling  to  each  generation,  in  the  sub- 
lime poetry  of  form,  the  greatness  of  the  man  who  made 
German  unity  a  reality  instead  of  a  dream. 

But  in  our  country,  we  do  not  thus  consciously  formu- 
late and  express  our  national  ideals.  We  recognize  them 
rather  with  averted  face  as  the  adolescent  boy  recog- 
nizes any  virtue  that  he  may  possess,  as  if  half-ashamed 
of  his  weakness.  We  have  monuments  to  our  heroes, 
it  is  true,  but  they  are  often  inaccessible,  and  as  often 
they  fail  to  convey  in  any  adequate  manner,  the  great- 
ness of  the  lessons  which  the  lives  of  these  heroes  repre- 
sent. Where  Germany  has  a  hundred  or  more  im- 
pressive memorials  to  the  genius  of  Bismarck,  we  have 
but  one  adequate  memorial  to  the  genius  of  Washington, 
while  for  Lincoln,  who  represents  the  typical  American 
standards  of  life  and  conduct  more  faithfully  than 
any  other  one  character  in  our  history,  we  have  no 
memorial  that  is  at  all  adequate,  —  and  we  should  have 
a  thousand.  Some  day  our  people  will  awake  to  the 
possibilities  that  inhere  in  these  palpable  expressions  of 
the  impalpable  things  for  which  our  country  stands. 


l8o  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

We  shall  come  to  recognize  the  vast  educative  im- 
portance of  perpetuating,  in  every  possible  way,  the 
deep  truths  that  have  been  established  at  the  cost  of 
so  much  blood  and  treasure. 

To  embody  our  national  ideals  in  the  personages  of 
the  great  figures  of  history  who  did  so  much  to  estab- 
lish them  is  the  most  elementary  method  of  insuring 
their  conservation  and  transmission.  We  are  beginning 
to  appreciate  the  value  of  this  method  in  our  introduc- 
tory courses  of  history  in  the  intermediate  and  lower 
grammar  grades.  The  historical  study  outlined  for 
these  grades  in  most  of  our  state  and  city  school  pro- 
grams includes  mainly  biographical  materials.  As  long 
as  the  purpose  of  this  study  is  kept  steadily  in  view 
by  the  teacher,  its  value  may  be  very  richly  realized. 
The  danger  lies  in  an  obscure  conception  of  the  pur- 
pose. We  are  always  too  prone  to  teach  history  didac- 
tically, and  to  teach  biographical  history  didactically 
is  to  miss  the  mark  entirely.  The  aim  here  is  not  pri- 
marily instruction,  but  inspiration ;  not  merely  learning, 
but  also  appreciation.  To  tell  the  story  of  Lincoln's  Ufe 
in  such  a  way  that  its  true  value  will  be  realized  requires 
first  upon  the  part  of  the  teacher  a  sincere  appreciation 
of  the  great  lesson  of  Lincoln's  life.  Lincoln  typifies  the 
most  significant  and  representative  of  American  ideals. 
His  career  stands  for  and  illustrates  the  greatest  of  our 
national  principles,  —  the  principle  of  equality,  —  not 
the  equality  of  birth,  not  the  equality  of  social  station, 


A   PLEA  FOR   THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION        l8l 

but  the  equality  of  opportunity.  That  a  child  of  the 
lowliest  birth,  reared  under  conditions  apparently  the 
most  unfavorable  for  rich  development,  limited  by  the 
sternest  poverty,  by  lack  of  formal  education,  by  lack 
of  family  pride  and  traditions,  by  lack  of  an  environ- 
ment of  culture,  by  the  hard  necessity  of  earning  his 
own  livelihood  almost  from  earliest  childhood,  —  that 
such  a  man  should  attain  to  the  highest  station  in  the 
land  and  the  proudest  eminence  in  its  history,  and 
should  have  acquired  from  the  apparently  unfavorable 
environment  of  his  early  life  the  very  qualities  that 
made  him  so  efl5cient  in  that  station  and  so  permanent 
in  that  eminence,  —  this  is  a  miracle  that  only  America 
could  produce.  It  is  this  conception  that  the  teacher 
must  have,  and  this  he  must,  in  some  measure,  im- 
press upon  his  pupils. 


In  the  teaching  of  history  in  the  elementary  school, 
the  biographical  treatment  is  followed  in  the  later  gram- 
mar grades  by  a  systematic  study  of  the  main  events 
of  American  history.  Here  the  method  is  different, 
but  the  purpose  is  the  same.  This  purpose  is,  I  take 
it,  to  show  how  our  ideals  and  standards  have  developed, 
through  what  struggles  and  conflicts  they  have  become 
firmly  established;  and  the  aim  must  be  to  have  our 
pupils  relive,  as  vividly  as  possible,  the  pain  and  the 
struggles  and  the  striving  and  the  triumph,  to  the  end 


1 82  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

that  they  may  appreciate,  however  feebly,  the  heritage 
that  is  theirs. 

Here  again  it  is  not  the  facts  as  such  that  are  im- 
portant, but  the  emotional  appreciation  of  the  facts,  and 
to  this  end,  the  coloring  must  be  rich,  the  pictures 
vivid,  the  contrasts  sharply  drawn.  The  successful 
teacher  of  history  has  the  gift  of  making  real  the  past. 
His  pupils  struggle  with  Columbus  against  a  frightened, 
ignorant,  mutinous  crew;  they  toil  with  the  Pilgrim 
fathers  to  conquer  the  wilderness;  they  follow  the 
bloody  trail  of  the  Deerfield  victims  through  the  forest 
to  Canada;  they  too  resist  the  encroachments  of  the 
Mother  Country  upon  their  rights  as  English  citizens; 
they  suffer  through  the  long  winter  at  Valley  Forge  and 
join  with  Washington  in  his  midnight  vigils;  they  re- 
joice at  Yorktown;  they  dream  with  Jefferson  and 
plead  with  Webster;  their  hearts  are  fired  with  the 
news  of  Sumter;  they  clinch  their  teeth  at  Bull  Run; 
they  gather  hope  at  Donelson,  but  they  shudder  at 
Shiloh;  they  struggle  through  the  Wilderness  with 
Grant;  tired  but  triumphant,  they  march  home  from 
Appomattox ;  and  through  it  all,  in  virtue  of  the  limit- 
less capacities  of  vicarious  experience,  they  have  shared 
the  agonies  of  Lincoln. 

Professor  Mace,  in  his  essay  on  Method  in  History^ 
tells  us  that  there  are  two  distinct  phases  to  every  his- 
torical event.  These  are  the  event  itself  and  the  hu- 
man feeling  that  brought  it  forth.     It  has  seemed  to 


A  PLEA   FOR   THE   DEFINITE    IN   EDUCATION        1 83 

me  that  there  are  three  phases,  —  the  event  itself,  the 
feeling  that  brought  it  forth,  and  the  feeling  to  which 
it  gave  birth;  for  no  event  is  historically  important 
unless  it  has  transformed  in  some  way  the  ideals  and 
standards  of  the  people,  —  unless  it  has  shifted,  in  some 
way,  their  point  of  view,  and  made  them  act  differently 
from  the  way  in  which  they  would  have  acted  had  the 
event  never  occurred.  One  leading  purpose  in  the  teach- 
ing of  history  is  to  show  how  ideals  have  been  trans- 
formed, how  we  have  come  to  have  standards  different 
from  those  that  were  once  held. 

Many  of  our  national  ideals  have  their  roots  deep 
down  in  English  history.  Not  long  ago  I  heard  a 
seventh-grade  class  discussing  the  Magna  Charta.  It 
was  a  class  in  American  history,  and  yet  the  events  that 
the  pupils  had  been  studying  occurred  three  centuries 
before  the  discovery  of  America.  They  had  become 
familiar  with  the  long  list  of  abuses  that  led  to  the 
granting  of  the  charter.  They  could  tell  very  glibly 
what  this  great  document  did  for  the  English  people. 
They  traced  in  detail  the  subsequent  events  that  led 
to  the  establishment  of  the  House  of  Commons.  All 
this  was  American  history  just  as  truly  as  if  the  events 
described  had  occurred  on  American  soil.  They  were 
gaining  an  appreciation  of  one  of  the  most  fundamental 
of  our  national  ideals,  —  the  ideal  of  popular  govern- 
ment. And  not  only  that,  but  they  were  studying 
popular  government  in  its  simplest  form,  uncomplicated 


184         CRAFTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

by  the  innumerable  details  and  the  elaborate  or- 
ganizations which  characterize  popular  government 
to-day. 

And  when  these  pupils  come  to  the  time  when  this 
ideal  of  self-government  was  transplanted  to  American 
soil,  they  will  be  ready  to  trace  with  intelligence  the 
changes  that  it  took  on.  They  will  appreciate  the 
marked  influence  which  geographical  conditions  exert 
in  shaping  national  standards  of  action.  How  richly 
American  history  reveals  and  illustrates  this  influence 
we  are  only  just  now  beginning  to  appreciate.  The 
French  and  the  English  colonists  developed  different 
types  of  national  character  partly  because  they  were 
placed  imder  different  geographical  conditions.  The 
St.  Lawrence  and  the  Great  Lakes  gave  the  French  an 
easy  means  of  access  into  the  vast  interior  of  the  con- 
tinent, and  provided  innumerable  temptations  to  ex- 
ploitation rather  than  a  few  incentives  to  development. 
Where  the  French  influence  was  dispersed  over  a  wide 
territory,  the  English  influence  was  concentrated.  As 
a  consequence,  the  English  energy  went  to  the  develop- 
ment of  resources  that  were  none  too  abimdant,  and  to 
the  establishment  of  permanent  institutions  that  would 
conserve  these  resources.  The  barrier  of  the  Appalachi- 
ans hemmed  them  in,  —  three  hundred  miles  of  alternate 
ridge  and  valley  kept  them  from  the  West  until  they 
were  numerically  able  to  settle  rather  than  to  exploit 
this  country.     Not  a  little  credit  for  the  ultimate  Eng- 


A  PLEA  FOR   THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION         1 85 

lish  domination  of  the  continent  must  be  given  to  these 
geographical  conditions. 

But  geography  does  not  tell  the  whole  story.  The 
French  colonists  differed  from  the  English  colonists 
from  the  outset  in  standards  of  conduct.  They  had 
brought  with  them  the  principle  of  paternalism,  and, 
in  time  of  trouble,  they  looked  to  France  for  support. 
The  English  colonists  brought  with  them  the  principle 
of  self-reliance  and,  in  time  of  trouble,  they  looked  only 
to  themselves.  And  so  the  old  English  ideals  had  a 
new  birth  and  a  broader  field  of  application  on  Ameri- 
can soil.  There  is  nothing  finer  in  our  country's  history 
than  the  attitude  of  the  New  England  colonists  during 
the  intercolonial  wars.  Their  northern  frontier  cover- 
ing two  hundred  miles  of  unprotected  territory  was 
constantly  open  to  the  incursions  of  the  French  from 
Canada  and  their  Indian  allies,  to  appease  whom  the 
French  organized  their  raids.  And  yet,  so  deeply  im- 
planted was  this  ideal  of  self-reliance  that  New  Eng- 
land scarcely  thought  of  asking  aid  of  the  mother  coun- 
try and  would  have  protested  to  the  last  against  the 
permanent  establishment  of  a  military  garrison  within 
her  limits.  For  a  period  extending  over  fifty  years. 
New  England  protected  her  own  borders.  She  felt  the 
terrors  of  savage  warfare  in  its  most  sanguinary  forms. 
And  yet,  uncomplaining,  she  taxed  herself  to  repel  the 
invaders.  The  people  loved  their  own  independence 
too  much  to  part  with  it,  even  for  the  sake  of  peace, 


l86  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

prosperity,  and  security.  At  a  later  date,  unknown  to 
the  mother  country,  they  raised  and  equipped  from  their 
own  yoimg  men  and  at  their  own  expense,  the  punitive 
expedition  that,  in  the  face  of  seemingly  certain  defeat, 
captured  the  French  fortress  at  Louisburg,  and  gave 
to  English  military  annals  one  of  its  most  briUiant 
victories.  To  get  the  pupil  to  live  through  these 
struggles,  to  feel  the  impetus  of  idealism  upon  conduct, 
to  appreciate  what  that  almost  forgotten  half-century 
of  conflict  meant  to  the  development  of  our  national 
character,  would  be  to  realize  the  greatest  value  that 
colonial  history  can  have  for  its  students.  It  lays  bare 
the  source  of  that  strength  which  made  New  England 
preeminent  in  the  Revolution,  and  which  has  placed 
the  mint  mark  of  New  England  idealism  upon  the  coin 
of  American  character.  Could  a  pupil  who  has  hved 
vicariously  through  such  experiences  as  these  easily  for- 
sake principle  for  policy  ? 

A  newspaper  cartoon  published  a  year  or  so  ago,  gives 
some  notion  of  the  danger  that  we  are  now  facing  of 
losing  that  idealism  upon  which  our  country  was  founded. 
The  cartoon  represents  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  The  worthies  are  standing  about  the 
table  dressed  in  the  knee  breeches  and  flowing  coats  of  the 
day,  with  wigs  conventionally  powdered  and  that  stately 
bearing  which  characterizes  the  typical  historical  paint- 
ing. John  Hancock  is  seated  at  the  table  prepared  to 
make  his  name  immortal.     A  figure,  however,  has  just 


A   PLEA   FOR   THE   DEFINITE    IN   EDUCATION        187 

appeared  in  the  doorway.  It  is  the  cartoonist's  conven- 
tional conception  of  the  modem  Captain  of  Industry. 
His  silk  hat  is  on  the  back  of  his  head  as  if  he  had 
just  come  from  his  office  as  fast  as  his  forty-horse-power 
automobile  could  carry  him.  His  portly  form  shows 
evidences  of  intense  excitement.  He  is  holding  his 
hand  aloft  to  stay  the  proceedings,  while  from  his  lips 
comes  the  stage  whisper:  "Gentlemen,  stop  !  You  will 
hurt  business!"  What  would  those  old  New  England 
fathers  think,  could  they  know  that  such  a  conception 
may  be  taken  as  representing  a  well-recognized  tendency 
of  the  present  day  ?  And  remember,  too,  that  those  old 
heroes  had  something  of  a  passion  for  trade  themselves. 
But  when  we  seek  for  the  source  of  our  most  important 
national  ideal,  —  the  ideal  that  we  have  called  equality 
of  opportunity,  —  we  must  look  to  another  part  of  the 
country.  The  typical  Americanism  that  is  represented 
by  Lincoln  owes  its  origin,  I  believe,  very  largely  to  geo- 
graphical factors.  It  could  have  been  developed  only 
imder  certain  conditions  and  these  conditions  the  Middle 
West  alone  provided.  The  settling  of  the  Middle  West 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  early  part  of 
the  nineteenth  centuries  was  part  and  parcel  of  a  rigid 
logic  of  events.  As  Miss  Semple  so  clearly  points  out  in 
her  work  on  the  geographic  conditions  of  American  his- 
tory, the  Atlantic  seaboard  sloped  toward  the  sea  and 
its  people  held  their  faces  eastward.  They  were  never 
cut  off  from  easy  communication  with  the  Old  World, 


l88  CRAPTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

and  consequently  they  were  never  quite  freed  from  the 
Old  World  prejudices  and  standards.  But  the  move- 
ment across  the  mountains  gave  rise  to  a  new  condition. 
The  faces  of  the  people  were  turned  westward,  and  cut 
off  from  easy  communication  with  the  Old  World,  they 
developed  a  new  set  of  ideals  and  standards  under  the 
stress  of  new  conditions.  Chief  among  these  conditions 
was  the  immensity  and  richness  of  the  territory  that 
they  were  settling.  The  vastness  of  their  outlook  and 
the  wealth  of  their  resources  confirmed  and  extended  the 
ideals  of  self-reliance  that  they  had  brought  with  them 
from  the  seaboard.  But  on  the  seaboard,  the  Old  World 
notion  of  social  classes,  the  prestige  of  family  and  sta- 
tion, still  held  sway.  The  development  of  the  Middle 
West  would  have  been  impossible  imder  so  severe  a 
handicap.  With  resources  so  great,  every  stimulus  must 
be  given  to  individual  achievement.  Nothing  must  be 
permitted  to  stand  in  its  way.  The  man  who  could  do 
tilings,  the  man  who  could  most  effectively  turn  the 
forces  of  nature  to  serve  the  needs  of  society,  was  the 
man  who  was  selected  for  preferment,  no  matter  what 
his  birth,  no  matter  what  the  station  of  his  family. 

We  might,  in  a  similar  fashion,  review  the  various  other 
ideals,  which  have  grown  out  of  our  history,  but,  as  I  have 
said,  my  purpose  is  not  historical  but  educational,  and 
the  illustrations  that  I  have  given  may  suffice  to  make  my 
contention  clear.  I  have  attempted  to  show  that  the 
chief  purpose  of  the  study  of  history  in  the  elementary 


A   PLEA   FOR   THE   DEFINITE   IN   EDUCATION        1 89 

school  is  to  establish  and  fortify  in  the  pupils'  minds  the 
significant  ideals  and  standards  of  conduct  which  those 
who  have  gone  before  us  have  gleaned  from  their  ex- 
perience. I  have  maintained  that,  to  this  end,  it  is  not 
only  the  facts  of  history  that  are  important,  but  the  ap- 
preciation of  these  facts.  I  have  maintained  that  these 
prejudices  and  ideals  have  a  profound  influence  upon 
conduct,  and  that,  consequently,  history  is  to  be  looked 
upon  as  a  most  practical  branch  of  study. 

The  best  way  in  this  world  to  be  definite  is  to  know  our 
goal  and  then  strive  to  attain  it.  In  the  lack  of  definite 
standards  based  upon  the  lessons  of  the  past,  our  domi- 
nant national  ideals  shift  with  every  shifting  wind  of 
public  sentiment  and  popular  demand.  Are  we  satisfied 
with  the  individualistic  and  self-centered  idealism  that 
has  come  with  our  material  prosperity  and  which  to-day 
shames  the  memory  of  the  men  who  founded  our  Re- 
public ?  Are  we  negligent  of  the  serious  menace  that 
confronts  any  people  when  it  loses  its  hold  upon  those 
goods  of  life  that  are  far  more  precious  than  commercial 
prestige  and  individual  aggrandizement  ?  Are  we  losing 
our  hold  upon  the  sterner  virtues  which  our  fathers  pos- 
sessed, —  upon  the  things  of  the  spirit  that  are  permanent 
and  enduring  ? 

A  study  of  history  cannot  determine  entirely  the  domi- 
nant ideals  of  those  who  pursue  it.  But  the  study  of 
history  if  guided  in  the  proper  spirit  and  dominated  by 


IpO  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

the  proper  aim  may  help.  For  no  one  who  gets  into  the 
spirit  of  our  national  history,  —  no  one  who  traces  the 
origin  and  growth  of  these  ideals  and  institutions  that  I 
have  named,  —  can  escape  the  conviction  that  the 
elemental  virtues  of  courage,  self-reliance,  hardihood, 
unselfishness,  self-denial,  and  service  lie  at  the  basis  of 
every  forward  step  that  this  country  has  made,  and  that 
the  most  precious  part  of  our  heritage  is  not  the  material 
comforts  with  which  we  are  surrounded,  but  the  sturdy 
virtues  which  made  these  comforts  possible. 


X 


Science  as  Related  to  the  Teaching  of  Litera- 

TURE* 

The  scientific  method  is  the  method  of  unprejudiced 
observation  and  induction.  Its  function  in  the  scheme 
of  life  is  to  furnish  man  with  facts  and  principles,  —  state- 
ments which  mirror  with  accuracy  and  precision  the  con- 
ditions that  may  exist  in  any  situation  of  any  sort  which 
man  may  have  to  face.  In  other  words,  the  facts  of 
science  are  important  and  worthy  because  they  help  us 
to  solve  the  problems  of  life  more  satisfactorily.  They 
are  instrumental  in  their  function.  They  are  means  to  an 
end.  And  whenever  we  have  a  problem  to  solve,  when- 
ever we  face  a  situation  that  demands  some  form  of  ad- 
justment, the  more  accurate  the  information  that  we 
posses  concerning  this  situation,  the  better  we  shall  be 
able  to  solve  it. 

Now  when  I  propose  that  we  try  to  find  out  some  facts 
about  the  teaching  of  English,  and  that  we  apply  the 
scientific  method  in  the  discovery  of  these  facts,  I  am 
immediately  confronted  with  an  objection.     My  opp)0- 

*  A  paper  read  before  the  English  Section  of  the  University  of  Illinois 
High- School  Conference,  November  17,  1910. 

191 


192  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

nent  will  maintain  that  the  subject  of  English  in  our 
school  curriculum  is  not  one  of  the  sciences.  Taking 
Enghsh  to  mean  particularly  English  literature  rather 
than  rhetoric  or  composition  or  grammar,  it  is  clear  that 
we  do  not  teach  Uterature  as  we  teach  the  sciences.  Its 
function  differs  from  that  of  science  in  the  curriculum. 
If  there  is  a  science  of  literature,  that  is  not  what  we  are 
teaching  in  the  secondary  schools,  and  that  is  not  what 
most  of  us  believe  should  be  taught  in  the  secondary 
schools.  We  think  that  the  study  of  literature  should 
transmit  to  each  generation  the  great  ideals  that  are  crys- 
tallized in  literary  masterpieces.  And  we  think  that,  in 
seeing  to  it  that  our  pupils  are  inspired  with  these  ideals, 
we  should  also  teach  Uterature  in  such  a  way  that  our 
pupils  will  be  left  with  a  desire  to  read  good  Uterature  as 
a  source  of  recreation  and  inspiration  after  they  have  fin- 
ished the  courses  that  we  offer.  When  I  speak  of  "in- 
spiration," "appreciation,"  the  development  of  "taste," 
and  the  like,  I  am  using  terms  that  have  little  direct 
relation  to  the  scientific  method;  for,  as  I  have  said, 
science  deals  with  facts,  and  the  harder  and  more  stub- 
born and  more  imyielding  the  facts  become,  the  better 
they  represent  true  science.  What  right  have  I,  then, 
to  speak  of  the  scientific  study  of  the  teaching  of  Eng- 
Ush,  when  science  and  Uterature  seem  to  belong  to  two 
quite  separate  rubrics  of  mental  Ufe? 

I  refer  to  this  point  of  view,  not  because  its  inconsist- 
encies are  not  fully  apparent  to  you  even  upon  the  sur- 


SCIENCE   AS   RELATED   TO   LITERATURE  1 93 

face,  but  because  it  is  a  point  of  view  that  has  hitherto 
interfered  very  materially  with  our  educational  progress. 
It  has  sometimes  been  assumed  that,  because  we  wish  to 
study  education  scientifically,  we  wish  to  read  out  of  it 
everything  that  cannot  be  reduced  to  a  scientific  formula, 
—  that,  somehow  or  other,  we  intend  still  further  to  in- 
tellectualize  the  processes  of  education  and  to  neglect  the 
tremendous  importance  of  those  factors  that  are  not 
primarily  intellectual  in  their  nature,  but  which  belong 
rather  to  the  field  of  emotion  and  feeling. 

I  wish,  therefore,  to  say  at  the  outset  that,  while  I 
firmly  believe  the  hope  of  education  to  lie  in  the  applica- 
tion of  the  scientific  method  to  the  solution  of  its  prob- 
lems, I  still  hold  that  neither  facts  nor  principles  nor 
any  other  products  of  the  scientific  method  are  the  most 
important  "goods"  of  life.  The  greatest  "goods"  in 
Ufe  are,  and  always  must  remain,  I  beheve,  its  ideals, 
its  visions,  its  insights,  and  its  sympathies,  —  must  al- 
ways remain  those  qualities  with  which  the  teaching  of 
literature  is  primarily  concerned,  and  in  the  engendering 
of  which  in  the  hearts  and  souls  of  his  pupils,  the  teacher 
of  literature  finds  the  greatest  opportunity  that  is 
vouchsafed  to  any  teacher. 

The  facts  and  principles  that  science  has  given  us 
have  been  of  such  service  to  humanity  that  we  are  prone 
to  forget  that  they  have  been  of  service  because  they 
have  helped  us  more  effectively  to  realize  our  ideals  and 
attain  our  ends;   and  we  are  prone  to  forget  also  that, 


194  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

without  the  ideals  and  the  ends  and  the  visions,  the  facts 
and  principles  would  be  quite  without  function.  I  have 
sometimes  been  taken  to  account  for  separating  these 
two  factors  in  this  way.  But  unless  we  do  distinguish 
sharply  between  them,  our  educational  thinking  is  bound 
to  be  hopelessly  obscure. 

You  have  all  heard  the  story  of  the  great  chemist  who 
was  at  work  in  his  laboratory  when  word  was  brought 
him  that  his  wife  was  dead.  As  the  first  wave  of  anguish 
swept  over  him,  he  bowed  his  head  upon  his  hands  and 
wept  out  his  grief;  but  suddenly  he  lifted  up  his  head, 
and  held  before  him  his  hands  wet  with  tears.  "Tears  ! " 
he  cried;  "what  are  they?  I  have  analyzed  them: 
a  little  chloride  of  sodivun,  some  alkaline  salts,  a  little 
mucin,  and  some  water.  That  is  all."  And  he  went 
back  to  his  work. 

The  story  is  an  old  one,  and  very  likely  apocryphal, 
but  it  is  not  without  its  lesson  to  us  in  the  present 
connection.  Unless  we  distinguish  between  these  two 
factors  that  I  have  named,  we  are  likely  either  to  take 
this  man's  attitude  or  something  approaching  it,  or  to 
go  to  the  other  extreme,  renounce  the  accuracy  and  pre- 
cision of  the  scientij5c  method,  and  give  ourselves  up 
to  the  cult  of  emotionalism. 

Now,  while  we  do  not  wish  to  read  out  of  the  teaching 
of  literature  the  factors  of  appreciation  and  inspiration, 
we  do  wish  to  find  out  how  these  important  functions  of 
our  teaching  may  be  best  fulfilled.    And  it  is  here  that 


SCIENCE  AS   RELATED   TO   LITERATURE  1 95 

facts  and  principles  gained  by  the  scientific  method  not 
only  can  but  must  furnish  the  ultimate  solution.  We 
have  a  problem.  That  problem,  it  is  true,  is  concerned 
with  something  that  is  not  scientific,  and  to  attempt 
to  make  it  scientific  is  to  kill  the  very  life  that  it  is  our 
problem  to  cherish.  But  in  solving  that  problem,  we 
must  take  certain  steps ;  we  must  arrange  our  materials 
in  certain  ways ;  we  must  adjust  hard  and  stubborn  facts 
to  the  attainment  of  our  end.  What  are  these  facts? 
What  is  their  relation  to  our  problem  ?  What  laws  gov- 
ern their  operation?  These  are  subordinate  but  very 
essential  parts  of  our  larger  problem,  and  it  is  through  the 
scientific  investigation  of  these  subordinate  problems 
that  our  larger  problem  is  to  be  solved. 

Let  me  give  you  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  We 
may  assume  that  every  boy  who  goes  out  of  the  high 
school  should  appreciate  the  meaning  and  worth  of  self- 
sacrifice  as  this  is  revealed  (not  expounded)  in  Dickens's 
delineation  of  the  character  of  Sidney  Carton.  There  is 
our  problem,  —  but  what  a  host  of  subordinate  problems 
at  once  confront  us !  Where  shall  we  introduce  The 
Tale  of  Two  Cities?  Will  it  be  in  the  second  year,  or  the 
third,  or  the  fourth?  Will  it  be  best  preceded  by  the 
course  in  general  history  which  will  give  the  pupil  a  time 
perspective  upon  the  crimson  background  of  the  French 
Revolution  against  which  Dickens  projected  his  master 
character  ?  Or  shall  we  put  The  Tale  of  Two  Cities  first 
for  the  sake  of  the  heightened  interest  which  the  art  of 


196  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN    TEACHING 

the  novelist  may  lend  to  the  facts  of  the  historian  ? 
Again,  how  may  the  story  be  best  presented?  What 
part  shall  the  pupils  read  in  class  ?  What  part  shall  they 
read  at  home?  What  part,  if  any,  shall  we  read  to 
them  ?  What  questions  are  necessary  to  insure  appreci- 
ation ?  How  many  of  the  allusions  need  be  run  down 
in  order  to  give  the  maximal  effect  of  the  masterpiece  ? 
How  may  the  necessarily  discontinuous  discussions  of  the 
class  —  one  period  each  day  for  several  days  —  be  so 
counteracted  as  to  insure  the  cumulative  emotional 
effect  which  the  appreciation  of  all  art  presupposes? 
Should  the  story  be  sketched  through  first,  and  then 
read  in  some  detail,  or  will  one  reading  suffice? 

These  are  problems,  I  repeat,  that  stand  to  the  chief 
problem  as  means  stand  to  end.  Now  some  of  these 
questions  must  be  solved  by  every  teacher  for  himself, 
but  that  does  not  prevent  each  teacher  from  solving  them 
scientifically.  Others,  it  is  clear,  might  be  solved  once 
and  for  all  by  the  right  kind  of  an  investigation, — might 
result  in  permanent  and  universal  laws  which  any  one 
could  apply. 

There  are,  of  course,  several  ways  in  which  answers 
for  these  questions  may  be  secured.  One  way  is  that  of 
a  priori  reasoning,  —  the  deductive  procedure.  This 
method  may  be  thoroughly  scientific,  depending  of  course 
upon  the  validity  of  our  general  principles  as  applied  to 
the  specific  problem.  Ordinarily  this  validity  can  be 
determined  only  by  trial;    consequently  these  a  priori 


SCIENCE   AS   RELATED   TO   LITERATURE  1 97 

inferences  should  be  looked  up>on  as  hypotheses  to  be 
tested  by  trial  under  standard  conditions.  For  example, 
I  might  argue  that  The  Tale  of  Two  Cities  should  be 
placed  in  the  third  year  because  the  emotional  ferment 
of  adolescence  is  then  most  favorable  for  the  engender- 
ing of  the  ideal.  But  in  the  first  place,  this  assumed 
principle  would  itself  be  subject  to  grave  question  and 
it  would  also  have  to  be  determined  whether  there  is 
so  little  variation  among  the  pupils  in  respect  of  physio- 
logical age  as  to  permit  the  application  to  all  of  a  gen- 
eralization that  might  conceivably  apply  only  to  the 
average  child.  In  other  words,  all  of  our  generalizations 
applying  to  average  pupils  must  be  applied  with  a 
knowledge  of  the  extent  and  range  of  variation  from 
the  average.  Some  people  say  that  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  an  average  child,  but,  for  all  practical  purposes, 
the  average  child  is  a  very  real  reaUty,  —  he  is,  in  fact, 
more  numerous  than  any  other  single  class;  but  this 
does  not  mean  that  there  may  be  not  enough  variations 
from  the  average  to  make  unwise  the  application  of  our 
principle. 

I  refer  to  this  hypothetical  case  to  show  the  extreme 
difl&culty  of  reaching  anything  more  than  hypotheses  by 
a  priori  reasoning.  We  have  a  certain  number  of  fairly 
well  established  general  principles  in  secondary  education. 
Perhaps  those  most  frequently  employed  are  our  generali- 
zations regarding  adolescence  and  its  influences  upon  the 
mental  and  especially  the  emotional  life  of  high-school 


198  CRAFTSMANSHIP    IN   TEACHING 

pupils,  Stanley  Hall's  work  in  this  field  is  wonderfully 
stimulating  and  suggestive,  and  yet  we  should  not  forget 
that  most  of  his  generalizations  are,  after  all,  only  plau- 
sible hypotheses  to  be  acted  upon  as  tentative  guides  for 
practice  and  to  be  tested  carefully  under  controlled  condi- 
tions, rather  than  to  be  accepted  as  immutable  and  im- 
changeable  laws.  We  sometimes  assume  that  all  high- 
school  pupils  are  adolescents,  when  the  likelihood  is  that 
an  appreciable  prop)ortion  of  pupils  in  the  first  two  years 
have  not  yet  reached  this  important  node  of  their  devel- 
opment. 

I  say  this  not  to  minimize  in  any  way  the  importance 
that  attaches  to  adolescent  characteristics,  but  rather  to 
suggest  that  you  who  are  daily  dealing  with  these  pupils 
can  in  the  aggregate  add  immeasurably  to  the  knowledge 
that  we  now  have  concerning  this  period.  A  tremen- 
dous waste  is  constantly  going  on  in  that  most  precious 
of  all  our  possible  resources,  —  namely,  human  experi- 
ence. How  many  problems  that  are  well  solved  have 
to  be  solved  again  and  again  because  the  experience  has 
not  been  crystallized  in  a  well-tested  fact  or  principle; 
how  many  experiences  that  might  be  well  worth  the  effort 
that  they  cost  are  quite  worthless  because,  in  undergoing 
them,  we  have  neglected  some  one  or  another  of  the  rules 
that  govern  inexorably  the  validity  of  our  inferences 
and  conclusions.  That  is  all  that  the  scientific  method 
means  in  the  last  analysis :  it  is  a  system  of  principles  that 
enable  us  to  make  our  experience  worth  while  in  meeting 


SCIENCE   AS   RELATED   TO   LITERATU|IE  I99 

later  situations.  We  all  have  the  opportunity  of  con- 
tributing to  the  sum  total  of  human  knowledge,  if  only 
we  know  the  rules  of  the  game. 

I  said  that  one  way  of  solving  these  subordinate  prob- 
lems that  arise  in  the  realization  of  our  chief  aims  in 
teaching  is  the  a  priori  method  of  applying  general  prin- 
ciples to  the  problems.  Another  method  is  to  imitate 
the  way  in  which  we  have  seen  some  one  else  handle  the 
situation.  Now  this  may  be  the  most  effective  way 
possible.  In  fact,  if  a  sufficient  number  of  generations  of 
teachers  keep  on  bUndly  plunging  in  and  floundering 
about  in  solving  their  problems,  the  most  effective 
methods  will  ultimately  be  evolved  through  what  we  call 
the  process  of  trial  and  error.  The  teaching  of  the  very 
oldest  subjects  in  the  curriculimi  is  almost  always  the  best 
and  most  effective  teaching,  for  the  very  reason  that  the 
blundering  process  has  at  last  resulted  in  an  effective 
procedure.  But  the  scientific  method  of  solving  prob- 
lems has  its  very  function  in  preventing  the  tremendous 
waste  that  this  process  involves.  English  literature  is  a 
comparatively  recent  addition  to  the  secondary  curricu- 
lum. Its  possibiUties  of  service  are  almost  imlimited. 
Shall  we  wait  for  ten  or  fifteen  generations  of  teachers  to 
blunder  out  the  most  effective  means  of  teaching  it,  or 
shall  we  avail  ourselves  of  these  simple  principles  which 
will  enable  us  to  concentrate  this  experience  within  one 
or  two  generations? 

I  should  like  to  emphasize  one  further  point.     No  one 


200  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

has  greater  respect  than  I  have  for  what  we  term  experi- 
ence in  teaching.  But  let  me  say  that  a  great  deal  of 
what  we  may  term  "crude"  experience  —  that  is,  ex- 
perience that  has  not  been  refined  by  the  apphcation  of 
scientific  method  —  is  most  untrustworthy,  —  unless, 
indeed,  it  has  been  garnered  and  winnowed  and  sifted 
through  the  ages.  Let  me  give  you  an  example  of  some 
accepted  dictums  of  educational  experience  that  con- 
trolled investigations  have  shown  to  be  untrustworthy. 

It  is  a  general  impression  among  teachers  that  specific 
habits  may  be  generalized ;  that  habits  of  neatness  and 
accuracy  developed  in  one  line  of  work,  for  example,  will 
inevitably  make  one  neater  and  more  accurate  in  other 
things.  It  has  been  definitely  proved  that  this  transfer 
of  training  does  not  take  place  inevitably,  but  in  reality 
demands  the  fulfillment  of  certain  conditions  of  which 
education  has  become  fully  conscious  only  within  a  com- 
paratively short  time,  and  as  a  result  of  careful,  system- 
atic, controlled  experimentation.  The  meaning  of  this 
in  the  prevention  of  waste  through  inadequate  teaching 
is  fully  apparent. 

Again,  it  has  been  supposed  by  many  teachers  that  the 
home  environment  is  a  large  factor  in  the  success  or  failure 
of  a  pupil  in  school.  In  every  accurate  and  controlled 
investigation  that  has  been  conducted  so  far  it  has  been 
shown  that  this  factor  in  such  subjects  as  arithmetic  and 
spelling  at  least  is  so  small  as  to  be  absolutely  neghgible 
in  practice. 


SCIENCE   AS   RELATED    TO   LITERATURE  20I 

Some  people  still  believe  that  a  teacher  is  born  and  not 
made,  and  yet  a  careful  investigation  of  the  efficiency  of 
elementary  teachers  shows  that,  when  such  teachers 
were  ranked  by  competent  judges,  specialized  training 
stood  out  as  the  most  important  factor  in  general  effi- 
ciency. In  this  same  investigation,  the  time-honored 
notion  that  a  college  education  will,  irrespective  of 
specialized  training,  adequately  equip  a  teacher  for  his 
work  was  revealed  as  a  fallacy, —  for  twenty-eight 
per  cent  of  the  normal- school  graduates  among  all  the 
teachers  were  in  the  first  and  second  ranks  of  efficiency 
as  against  only  seventeen  per  cent  of  the  college  gradu- 
ates; while,  in  the  two  lowest  ranks,  only  sixteen  per 
cent  of  the  normal-school  graduates  are  to  be  foimd  as 
against  forty-four  per  cent  of  the  college  graduates. 
These  investigations,  I  may  add,  were  made  by  uni- 
versity professors,  and  I  am  giving  them  here  in  a 
university  classroom  and  as  a  university  representative. 
And  of  course  I  shall  hasten  to  add  that  general  scholar- 
ship is  one  important  essential.  Our  mistake  has  been 
in  assuming  sometimes  that  it  is  the  only  essential. 

Very  frequently  the  controlled  experience  of  scientific 
investigation  confirms  a  principle  that  has  been  derived 
from  crude  experience.  Most  teachers  will  agree,  for 
example,  that  a  certain  amount  of  drill  and  repetition  is 
absolutely  essential  in  the  mastery  of  any  subject.  Every 
time  that  scientific  investigation  has  touched  this  prob- 
lem it  has  uimiistakably  confirmed  this  belief.    Some  very 


202  CRArTSM.\NSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

recent  investigations  made  by  Mr.  Brown  at  the  Charles- 
ton Normal  School  show  conclusively  that  five-minute 
drill  periods  preceding  every  lesson  in  arithmetic  place 
pupils  who  undergo  such  periods  far  in  advance  of  others 
who  spend  this  time  in  non-drill  arithmetical  work,  and 
that  this  improvement  holds  not  only  in  the  number 
habits,  but  also  in  the  reasoning  processes. 

Other  similar  cases  could  be  cited,  but  I  have  proba- 
bly said  enough  to  make  my  point,  and  my  point  is 
this :  that  crude  experience  is  an  unsafe  guide  for  prac- 
tice; that  experience  may  be  refined  in  two  ways  — 
first  by  the  slow,  halting,  wasteful  operation  of  time, 
which,  has  established  many  principles  upon  a  pinnacle 
of  security  from  which  they  will  never  be  shaken,  but 
which  has  also  accomplished  this  result  at  the  cost  of  in- 
numerable mistakes,  blunders,  errors,  futile  efforts,  and 
heartbreaking  failures ;  or  secondly,  by  the  application 
of  the  principles  of  control  and  test  which  are  now  at  our 
service,  and  which  permit  present-day  teachers  to  con- 
centrate within  a  single  generation  the  growth  and  devel- 
opment and  progress  that  the  empirical  method  of  trial 
and  error  could  not  encompass  in  a  millennium. 

The  teaching  of  English  merits  treatment  by  this 
method.  I  recommend  strongly  that  you  give  the  plan 
a  trial.  You  may  not  get  immediate  results.  You  may 
not  get  valuable  results.  But  in  any  case,  if  you  care- 
fully respect  the  scientific  proprieties,  your  experience 
will  be  worth  vastly  more  than  ten  times  the  amoimt  of 


SCIENCE   AS   RELATED  TO   LITERATURE  203 

crude  experience;  and,  whether  you  get  results  or  not, 
you  will  undergo  a  valuable  discipline  from  which  may 
emerge  the  ideals  of  science  if  you  are  not  already 
imbued  with  them.  I  always  tell  my  students  that, 
even  in  the  study  of  science  itself,  it  is  the  ideals  of 
science,  —  the  ideals  of  patient,  thoughtful  work,  the 
ideals  of  open-mindedness  and  caution  in  reaching  con- 
clusions, the  ideals  of  unprejudiced  observation  from 
which  selfishness  and  personal  desire  are  eliminated,  — 
it  is  these  ideals  that  are  vastly  more  important  than 
the  facts  of  science  as  such,  —  and  these  latter  are  sig- 
nificant enough  to  have  made  possible  our  present  prog- 
ress and  our  present  amenities  of  life. 


XI 

The  New  Attitude  toward  Drill* 

Wandering  about  in  a  circle  through  a  thick  forest  is 
perhaps  an  overdrawn  analogy  to  our  activity  in  at- 
tempting to  construct  educational  theories;  and  yet 
there  is  a  resemblance.  We  push  out  hopefully  —  and 
often  boastfully  —  into  the  unknown  wilderness,  abso- 
lutely certain  that  we  are  pioneering  a  trail  that  will 
later  become  the  royal  highway  to  learning.  We 
struggle  on,  ruthlessly  using  the  hatchet  and  the  ax 
to  clear  the  road  before  us.  And  all  too  often  we  come 
back  to  our  starting  point,  having  unwittingly  described 
a  perfect  circle,  instead  of  the  straight  line  that  we  had . 
anticipated. 

But  I  am  not  a  pessimist,  and  I  like  to  believe  that, 
although  our  course  frequently  resembles  a  circle,  it  is 
much  better  to  characterize  it  as  a  spiral,  and  that, 
although  we  do  get  back  to  a  point  that  we  recognize, 
it  is  not,  after  all,  our  old  starting  point ;  it  is  an  ho- 
mologous point  on  a  higher  plane.  We  have  at  least 
climbed  a  little,  even  if  we  have  not  traveled  in  a  straight 
line. 

1  An  address  before  the  Kansas  State  Teachers'  Association,  Topeka, 
October  20,  19 10. 

304 


THE   NEW  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  20$ 

Now  in  a  figurative  way  this  explains  how  we  have 
come  to  take  our  present  attitude  toward  the  problem 
of  drill  or  training  in  the  process  of  education.  Drill 
means  the  repetition  of  a  process  imtil  it  has  become 
mechanical  or  automatic.  It  means  the  kind  of  dis- 
ciphne  that  the  recruit  undergoes  in  the  army,  —  the 
making  of  a  series  of  comphcated  movements  so  thor- 
oughly automatic  that  they  will  be  gone  through  with 
accurately  and  precisely,  at  the  word  of  command.  It 
means  the  sort  of  discipline  that  makes  certain  activi- 
ties machine-hke  in  their  operation,  —  so  that  we  do 
not  have  to  think  about  which  one  comes  next.  Thus 
the  mind  is  relieved  of  the  burden  of  looking  after  the 
innumerable  details  and  may  use  its  precious  energy 
for  a  more  important  purpose. 

In  every  adult  life,  a  large  number  of  these  mechan- 
ized responses  are  absolutely  essential  to  efficiency. 
Modern  civilized  life  is  so  highly  organized  that  it 
demands  a  multitude  of  reactions  and  adjustments 
which  primitive  life  did  not  demand.  It  goes  without 
saying  that  there  are  innumerable  Uttle  details  of  our 
daily  work  that  must  be  reduced  to  the  plane  of  un- 
varying habit.  These  details  vary  with  the  trade  or 
profession  of  the  individual ;  hence  general  education 
cannot  hope  to  supply  the  individual  with  all  of  the 
automatic  responses  that  he  will  need.  But,  in  addition 
to  these  specialized  responses,  there  is  a  large  mass  of 
responses  that  are  common  to  every  member  of  the 


206  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

social  group.  We  must  all  be  able  to  communicate 
with  one  another,  both  through  the  medium  of  speech, 
and  through  the  medium  of  written  and  printed  sym- 
bols. We  live  in  a  society  that  is  founded  upon  the 
principle  of  the  division  of  labor.  We  must  exchange 
the  products  of  our  labor  for  the  necessities  of  life  that 
we  do  not  ourselves  produce,  and  hence  arises  the  ne- 
cessity for  the  short  cuts  to  counting  and  measurement 
which  we  call  arithmetic.  And  finally  we  must  all  live 
together  in  something  at  least  approaching  harmony ; 
hence  the  thousand  and  one  little  responses  that  mean 
courtesy  and  good  manners  must  be  made  thoroughly 
automatic. 

Now  education,  from  the  very  earliest  times,  has 
recognized  the  necessity  of  building  up  these  auto- 
matic responses,  —  of  fixing  these  essential  habits  in  all 
individuals.  This  recognition  has  often  been  short- 
sighted and  sometimes  even  blind ;  but  it  has  served 
to  hold  education  rather  tenaciously  to  a  process  that 
all  must  admit  to  be  essential. 

Drill  or  training,  however,  is  unfortunate  in  one  im- 
portant particular.  It  invariably  involves  repetition; 
and  conscious,  explicit  repetition  tends  to  become 
monotonous.  We  must  hold  attention  to  the  drill 
process,  and  yet  attention  abhors  monotony  as  nature 
abhors  a  vacuum.  Consequently  no  small  part  of  the 
tedium  and  irksomeness  of  school  work  has  been  due 
to  its  emphasis  of  drill.    The  formalism  of  the  older 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  207 

schools  has  been  described,  criticized,  and  lampooned  in 
professional  literature,  and  even  in  the  pages  of  fiction. 
The  disastrous  results  that  follow  from  engendering 
in  pupils  a  disgust  for  school  and  all  that  it  represents 
have  been  eloquently  portrayed.  Along  with  the 
tendency  toward  ease  and  comfort  in  other  departments 
of  human  life  has  gone  a  parallel  tendency  to  relieve 
the  school  of  this  odious  burden  of  formal,  lifeless, 
repetitive  work. 

This  "reform  movement,"  as  I  shall  call  it,  repre- 
sents our  first  plunge  into  the  wilderness.  We  would 
get  away  from  the  entanglements  of  drill  and  into  the 
clearings  of  pleasurable,  spontaneous  activities.  A  new 
sim  of  hope  dawned  upon  the  educational  world. 

You  are  all  familiar  with  some  of  the  more  spectac- 
ular results  of  this  movement.  You  have  heard  of 
the  schools  that  eliminated  drill  processes  altogether, 
and  depended  upon  clear  initial  development  to  fix  the 
facts  and  formulae  and  reactions  that  every  one  needs. 
You  have  heard  and  perhaps  seen  some  of  the  schools 
that  were  based  entirely  upon  the  doctrine  of  spon- 
taneity, governing  their  work  by  the  principle  that  the 
child  should  never  do  anything  that  he  did  not  wish 
to  do  at  the  moment  of  doing,  —  although  the  advo- 
cates of  this  theory  generally  qualified  their  principle 
by  insisting  that  the  skillful  teacher  would  have  the 
child  wish  to  do  the  right  thing  all  the  time. 

Let  me  describe  to  you  a  school  of  this  type  that  I 


208  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

once  visited.  I  learned  of  it  through  a  resident  of 
the  city  in  which  it  was  located.  He  was  delivering 
an  address  before  an  educational  gathering  on  the 
problems  of  modern  education.  He  told  the  audience 
that,  in  the  schools  of  this  enlightened  city,  the  an- 
tiquated notions  that  were  so  pernicious  had  been 
entirely  dispensed  with.  He  said  that  pupils  in  these 
schools  were  no  longer  repressed;  that  all  regimenta- 
tion, line  passing,  static  posture,  and  other  barbaric 
practices  had  been  abolished;  that  the  pupils  were  free 
to  work  out  their  own  destiny,  to  realize  themselves, 
through  all  forms  of  constructive  activity;  that  drills 
had  been  eliminated;  that  corporal  punishment  was 
never  even  mentioned,  much  less  practiced;  that  all 
was  harmony,  and  love,  and  freedom,  and  spontaneity. 

I  listened  to  this  speaker  with  intense  interest,  and, 
as  his  picture  unfolded,  I  became  more  and  more  con- 
vinced that  this  city  had  at  last  solved  the  problem. 
I  took  the  earliest  opportunity  to  visit  its  schools.  When 
I  reached  the  city  I  went  to  the  superintendent's  office. 
I  asked  to  be  directed  to  the  best  school.  "Our  schools 
are  all  'best,'"  the  secretary  told  me  with  an  intona- 
tion that  denoted  commendable  pride,  and  which  cer- 
tainly made  me  feel  extremely  humble,  for  here  even 
the  laws  of  logic  and  of  formal  grammar  had  been 
transcended.  I  made  bold  to  apologize,  however,  and 
amended  my  request  to  make  it  apparent  that  I  wished 
to  see  the  largest  school.    I  was  directed  to  take  a  cer- 


THE   NEW  ATTITUDE    TOWAKD   DRILL  209 

tain  car  and,  in  due  time,  found  myself  at  the  school. 
I  inferred  that  recess  was  in  progress  when  I  reached 
the  building,  and  that  the  recess  was  being  celebrated 
within  doors.  After  some  time  spent  in  dodging  about 
the  corridors,  I  at  last  located  the  principal. 

I  introduced  myself  and  asked  if  I  could  visit  his 
school  after  recess  was  over.  "We  have  no  recesses 
here,"  he  replied  (I  could  just  catch  his  voice  above 
the  din  of  the  corridors);  "this  is  a  relaxation  period 
for  some  of  the  classes."  He  led  the  way  to  the  oflSce, 
and  I  spent  a  few  moments  in  getting  the  "  lay  of  the 
land."  I  asked  him,  first,  whether  he  agreed  with  the 
doctrines  that  the  system  represented,  and  he  told  me 
that  he  believed  in  them  impUcitly.  Did  he  follow  them 
out  consistently  in  the  operation  of  his  school  ?  Yes,  he 
followed  them  out  to  the  letter. 

We  then  went  to  several  classrooms,  where  I  saw  chil- 
dren realizing  themselves,  I  thought,  very  efifectively. 
There  were  three  groups  at  work  in  each  room.  One 
recited  to  the  teacher,  another  studied  at  the  seats,  a 
third  did  construction  work  at  the  tables.  I  inquired 
about  the  mechanics  of  this  rather  elaborate  organiza- 
tion, but  I  was  told  that  mechanics  had  been  eliminated 
from  this  school.  Mechanical  organization  of  the 
classroom,  it  seems,  crushes  the  child's  spontaneity, 
represses  his  self-activity,  prevents  the  effective  opera- 
tion of  the  principle  of  self-realization.  How,  then,  did 
these  three  groups  exchange  places,  for  I  felt  that  the 
9 


2IO  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

doctrine  of  self-realization  would  not  permit  them  to 
remain  in  the  same  employment  during  the  entire 
session.  "Oh,"  the  principal  repUed,  "when  they  get 
ready  to  change,  they  change,  that's  all." 

I  saw  that  a  change  was  coming  directly,  so  I  waited 
to  watch  it.  The  group  had  been  working  with  what 
I  should  call  a  great  deal  of  noise  and  confusion.  All 
at  once  this  increased  tenfold.  Pupils  jumped  over 
seats,  ran  into  each  other  in  the  aisles,  scurried  and 
scampered  from  this  place  to  that,  while  the  teacher 
stood  in  the  front  of  the  room  wildly  waving  her  arms. 
The  performance  lasted  several  minutes.  "There's 
spontaneity  for  you,"  the  principal  shouted  above  the 
roar  of  the  storm.  I  acquiesced  by  a  nod  of  the  head, 
—  my  lungs,  through  lack  of  training,  being  unequal  to 
the  emergency. 

We  passed  to  another  room.  The  same  group  sys- 
tem was  in  evidence.  I  noticed  pupils  who  had  been 
working  at  their  seats  suddenly  put  away  their  books 
and  papers  and  skip  over  to  the  construction  table.  I 
asked  concerning  the  nature  of  the  construction  work. 
"We  use  it,"  the  principal  told  me,  "as  a  reward  for 
good  work  in  the  book  subjects.  You  see  arithmetic  is 
dead  and  dry.  You  must  give  pupils  an  incentive  to 
master  it.  We  make  the  privileges  of  the  construction 
table  the  incentive."  "What  do  they  make  at  this 
table?"  I  asked.  "Whatever  their  fancy  dictates," 
he  replied.    I  was  a  little  curious,  however,  to  know 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE   TOWARD    DRILL  211 

how  it  all  come  out.  I  saw  one  child  start  to  work  on 
a  basket,  work  at  it  a  few  minutes,  then  take  up  some- 
thing else,  continue  a  little  time,  go  back  to  the  basket, 
and  finally  throw  both  down  for  a  third  object  of  self- 
realization.  I  called  the  principal's  attention  to  this 
phenomenon.  "How  do  you  get  the  beautiful  results 
that  you  exhibit?"  I  asked.  "For  those,"  he  said, 
"we  just  keep  the  pupils  working  on  one  thing  until  it 
is  finished."  "But,"  I  objected,  "is  that  consistent 
with  the  doctrine  of  spontaneity?"  His  answer  was 
lost  in  the  din  of  a  change  of  groups,  and  I  did  not 
follow  the  investigation  further. 

Noon  dismissal  was  due  when  I  went  into  the  corri- 
dor. Lines  are  forbidden  in  that  school.  At  the  stroke 
of  the  bell,  the  classroom  doors  burst  open  and  bedlam 
was  let  loose.  I  had  anticipated  what  was  coming,  and 
hurriedly  betook  myself  to  an  alcove.  I  saw  more 
spontaneity  in  two  minutes  than  I  had  ever  seen  before 
in  my  life.  Some  boys  tore  through  the  corridors  at 
breakneck  speed  and  down  the  stairways,  three  steps  at 
a  time.  Others  sauntered  along,  realizing  various  pro- 
pensities by  pushing  and  shoving  each  other,  snatching 
caps  out  of  others'  hands,  slapping  each  other  over  the 
head  with  books,  and  various  other  expressions  of  ex- 
uberant spirits.  One  group  stopped  in  front  of  my 
alcove,  and  showed  commendable  curiosity  about  the 
visitor  in  their  midst.  After  exhausting  his  static  pos- 
sibilities,  they  tempted  him  to  dynamic  reaction  by 


212  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

making  faces;  but  this  proving  to  be  of  no  avail,  they 
went  on  their  way,  —  in  the  hope,  doubtless,  of  realiz- 
ing themselves  elsewhere, 

I  left  that  school  with  a  fairly  firm  conviction  that  I 
had  seen  the  most  advanced  notions  of  educational 
theory  worked  out  to  a  logical  conclusion.  There  was 
nothing  halfway  about  it.  There  was  no  apology 
offered  for  anything  that  happened.  It  was  all  fair 
and  square  and  open  and  aboveboard.  To  be  sure, 
the  pupils  were,  to  my  prejudiced  mind,  in  a  condition 
approaching  anarchy,  but  I  could  not  deny  the  spon- 
taneity, nor  could  I  deny  self-activity,  nor  could  I  deny 
self-realization.  These  principles  were  evidently  operat- 
ing without  let  or  hindrance. 

Before  leaving  the  school,  I  took  occasion  to  inquire 
concerning  the  effect  of  such  a  system  upon  the  teachers. 
I  led  up  to  it  by  asking  the  principal  if  there  were  any 
nervous  or  anaemic  children  in  his  school.  "Not  one," 
he  replied  enthusiastically;  "our  system  eliminates 
them."  "But  how  about  the  teachers?"  I  ventured  to 
remark,  having  in  mind  the  image  of  a  distracted  young 
woman  whom  I  had  seen  attempting  to  reduce  forty 
little  ruffians  to  some  semblance  of  law  and  order  through 
moral  suasion.  If  I  judged  conditions  correctly,  that 
woman  was  on  the  verge  of  a  nervous  breakdown.  My 
guide  became  confidential  when  I  made  this  inquiry. 
"To  tell  the  truth,"  he  whispered,  "the  system  is  mighty 
hard  on  the  women." 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  213 

A  few  years  ago  I  had  the  privilege  of  visiting  a  high 
school  which  was  operated  upon  this  same  principle. 
I  visited  in  that  school  some  classes  that  were  taught 
by  men  and  women,  whom  I  should  number  among  the 
most  expert  teachers  that  I  have  ever  seen.  The  in- 
struction that  these  men  and  women  were  giving  was 
as  clear  and  lucid  as  one  could  desire.  And  yet,  in  spite 
of  that  excellent  instruction,  pupils  read  newspapers, 
prepared  other  lessons,  or  read  books  during  the  recita- 
tions, and  did  all  this  openly  and  unreproved.  They 
responded  to  their  instructors  with  shameless  insolence. 
Young  ladies  of  sixteen  and  seventeen  coming  from 
cultured  homes  were  permitted  in  this  school  to  pull 
each  other's  hair,  pinch  the  arms  of  schoolmates  who 
were  reciting,  and  behave  themselves  in  general  as  if 
they  were  savages.  The  pupils  lolled  in  their  seats, 
passed  notes,  kept  up  an  undertone  of  conversation, 
arose  from  their  seats  at  the  first  tap  of  the  beU,  and 
piled  in  disorder  out  of  the  classroom  while  the  in- 
structor was  still  talking.  If  the  lessons  had  been 
tedious,  one  might  perhaps  at  least  have  palliated  such 
conduct,  but  the  instruction  was  very  far  from  tedious. 
It  was  bright,  lively,  animated,  beautifully  clear,  and 
admirably  illustrated.  It  is  simply  the  theory  of  this 
school  never  to  interfere  with  the  spontaneous  activity 
of  the  pupils.  And  I  may  add  that  the  school  draws 
its  enrollment  very  largely  from  wealthy  families  who 
believe  that  their  children  are  being  given  the  best  that 


214  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

modem  education  has  developed,  that  they  are  not 
being  subjected  to  the  deadening  methods  of  the  aver- 
age public  school,  and  above  all  that  their  manners 
are  not  being  corrupted  by  promiscuous  mingling  with 
the  offspring  of  illiterate  immigrants.  And  yet  soon 
afterward,  I  visited  a  high  school  in  one  of  the  poorest 
slum  districts  of  a  large  city,  I  saw  pupils  well-behaved, 
courteous  to  one  another,  to  their  instructors,  and  to 
visitors.  The  instruction  was  much  below  that  given 
in  the  first  school  in  point  of  quality,  and  yet  the 
pupils  were  getting  from  it,  even  under  these  conditions, 
vastly  more  than  were  the  pupils  of  the  other  school 
from  their  masterly  instructors. 

The  two  schools  that  I  first  described  represent  one 
type  of  the  attempt  that  education  has  made  to  pioneer 
a  new  path  through  the  wilderness.  I  have  said  that 
many  of  these  attempts  have  ended  by  bringing  the 
adventurers  back  to  their  starting  point.  I  cannot  say 
so  much  for  these  schools.  The  movement  that  they 
represent  is  still  floundering  about  in  the  tamarack 
swamps,  getting  farther  and  farther  into  the  morass, 
with  Uttle  hope  of  ever  emerging. 

May  I  tax  your  patience  with  one  more  concrete 
illustration:  this  time,  of  a  school  that  seems  to  me  to 
have  reached  the  starting  point,  but  on  that  new  and 
higher  plane  of  which  I  have  spoken  ? 

This  school  is  in  a  small  Massachusetts  town,  and  is 
the  model  department  of  the  state  normal  school  located 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  215 

at  that  place.  The  first  point  that  impressed  me  was 
typified  by  a  boy  of  about  twelve  who  was  passing 
through  the  corridor  as  I  entered  the  building.  In- 
stead of  slouching  along,  wasting  every  possible  moment 
before  he  should  return  to  his  room,  he  was  walking 
briskly  as  if  eager  to  get  back  to  his  work.  Instead  of 
staring  at  the  stranger  within  his  gates  with  the  impu- 
dent curiosity  so  often  noticed  in  children  of  this  age, 
he  greeted  me  pleasantly  and  wished  to  know  if  I  were 
looking  for  the  principal.  When  I  told  him  that  I  was, 
he  informed  me  that  the  principal  was  on  the  upper 
floor,  but  that  he  would  go  for  him  at  once.  He  did, 
and  returned  a  moment  later  saying  that  the  head  of 
the  school  would  be  down  directly,  and  asked  me  to 
wait  in  the  ofl&ce,  into  which  he  ushered  me  with  all  the 
courtesy  of  a  private  secretary.  Then  he  excused  him- 
self and  went  directly  to  his  room. 

Now  that  might  have  been  an  exceptional  case,  but 
I  found  out  later  that  is  was  not.  Wherever  I  went  in 
that  school,  the  pupils  were  polite  and  courteous  and 
respectful.  That  was  part  of  their  education.  It 
should  be  part  of  every  child's  education.  But  many 
schools  are  too  busy  teaching  reading,  writing,  and 
arithmetic,  and  others  are  too  busy  preserving  disci- 
pline, and  others  are  too  busy  coquetting  for  the  good 
will  of  their  pupils  and  trying  to  amuse  them  —  too 
busy  to  give  heed  to  a  set  of  habits  that  are  of  para- 
mount importance  in  the  life  of  civilized  society.    This 


2l6  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

school  took  up  the  matter  of  trammg  in  good  manners 
as  an  essential  part  of  its  duty,  and  it  accomplished 
this  task  quickly  and  effectively.  It  did  it  by  utilizing 
the  opportunities  presented  in  the  usual  course  of 
school  work.  It  took  a  little  time  and  a  little  atten- 
tion, for  good  manners  cannot  be  acquired  incidentally 
any  more  than  the  multiplication  tables  can  be  acquired 
incidentally ;  but  it  utilized  the  everyday  opportunities 
of  the  schoolroom,  and  did  not  make  morals  and  man- 
ners the  subject  of  instruction  for  a  half-hour  on  Friday 
afternoons  to  be  completely  forgotten  during  the  rest  of 
the  week. 

When  the  principal  took  me  through  the  school,  I 
noted  everywhere  a  happy  and  courteous  relation  be- 
tween pupils  and  teachers.  They  spoke  pleasantly  to 
one  another.  I  heard  no  nagging  or  scolding.  I  saw 
no  one  sulking  or  pouting  or  in  bad  temper.  And  yet 
there  was  every  evidence  of  respect  and  obedience  on 
the  part  of  the  pupils.  There  was  none  of  that  happy- 
go-lucky  comradeship  which  I  have  sometimes  seen  in 
other  modern  schools,  and  which  leads  the  pupil  to 
understand  that  his  teacher  is  there  to  gain  his  interest, 
not  to  command  his  respectful  attention.  Pupils  were 
too  busy  with  their  work  to  talk  much  with  one  an- 
other. They  were  sitting  up  in  their  seats  as  a  matter 
of  habit,  and  it  did  not  seem  to  hurt  them  seriously  to 
do  so.  And  everywhere  they  were  working  like  beavers 
at  one  task  or  another,  or  attending  with  all  their  eyes 
and  ears  to  a  recitation. 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE    TOWAKD   DRILL  21 7 

Now  it  seemed  to  me  that  this  school  was  operated 
with  a  minimum  of  waste  or  loss.  Every  item  of  energy 
that  the  pupils  p>ossessed  was  being  given  to  some  edu- 
cative activity.  Nothing  was  lost  by  conflict  between 
pupil  and  teacher.  Nothing  was  lost  by  bursts  of 
anger  or  by  fits  of  depression.  These  sources  of  waste 
had  been  eliminated  so  far  as  I  could  determine.  The 
pupils  could  read  well  and  write  well  and  cipher  accu- 
rately. They  even  took  a  keen  delight  in  the  drills. 
And  I  found  that  this  phase  of  their  work  was  en- 
Ughtened  by  the  modem  content  that  had  been  intro- 
duced.  In  their  handwork  and  manual  training  they 
could  see  that  arithmetic  was  useful,  —  that  it  had 
something  to  do  with  the  great  big  buzzing  life  of  the 
outer  world.  They  learned  that  spelling  was  useful  in 
writing,  —  that  it  was  not  something  that  began  and 
ended  within  the  covers  of  the  speUing  book,  but  that 
it  had  a  real  and  vital  relation  to  other  things  that 
they  found  to  be  important.  They  had  their  dramatic 
exercises  in  which  they  and  their  fellows,  and,  on  occa- 
sions, their  parents,  took  a  keen  delight,  and  they  were 
glad  to  afford  them  pleasure  and  to  receive  congratula- 
tions at  the  close.  And  yet  they  found  that,  in  order 
to  do  these  things  well,  they  must  read  and  study  and 
drill  on  speaking.  They  liked  to  have  their  drawings 
inspected  and  praised  at  the  school  exhibitions,  but  they 
soon  found  that  good  drawing  and  painting  and  design- 
ing were  strictly  conditioned  by  a  mastery  of  technique, 


2l8  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

and  they  wished  to  master  technique  in  order  to  win 
these  rewards. 

Now  what  was  the  secret  of  the  efl&ciency  of  this 
school?  Not  merely  the  fact  that  it  had  introduced 
certain  types  of  content  such  as  drawing,  manual  train- 
ing, domestic  science,  dramatization,  story  work,  — 
but  also  that  it  had  not  lost  sight  of  the  fundamental 
purpose  of  elementary  education,  but  had  so  organized 
all  of  its  studies  that  each  played  into  the  hands  of 
the  others,  and  that  everything  that  was  done  had 
some  definite  and  tangible  relation  to  everything  else. 
The  manual  training  exercises  and  the  mechanical 
drawing  were  exercises  in  arithmetic,  but,  let  me  remind 
you,  there  were  other  lessons,  and  formal  lessons,  in 
arithmetic  as  well.  But  the  one  exercise  enhghtened 
and  made  more  meaningful  the  other.  In  the  same  way 
the  story  and  dramatization  were  intimately  related  to 
the  reading  and  the  language,  but  there  were  formal 
lessons  in  reading  and  formal  lessons  in  language.  The 
geography  illustrated  nature  study  and  employed  lan- 
guage and  arithmetic  and  drawing  in  its  exercises.  And 
so  the  whole  structure  was  organized  and  coherent 
and  unified,  and  what  was  taught  in  one  class  was 
utilized  in  another.  There  was  no  needless  duplication, 
no  needless  or  meaningless  repetition.  But  repetition 
there  was,  over  and  over  again,  but  always  it  was  effec- 
tive in  still  more  firmly  fixing  the  habits. 

One  would  be  an  ingrate,  indeed,    if  one  failed  to 


THE    NEW  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  219 

recognize  the  great  good  that  an  extreme  reform  move- 
ment may  do.  Some  very  precious  increments  of 
progress  have  resulted  even  from  the  most  extreme  and 
ridiculous  reactions  against  the  drill  and  formalism  of 
the  older  schools.  Let  me  briefly  summarize  these  really 
substantial  gains  as  I  conceive  them. 

In  the  first  place,  we  have  come  to  recognize  distinctly 
the  importance  of  enlisting  in  the  service  of  habit  building 
the  native  instincts  of  the  child.  Up  to  a  certain  point 
nature  provides  for  the  fixing  of  useful  responses,  and  we 
should  be  unwise  not  to  make  use  of  these  tendencies.  In 
the  spontaneous  activities  of  play,  certain  fundamental 
reactions  are  continually  repeated  imtil  they  reach  the 
plane  of  absolute  mechanism.  In  imitating  the  actions 
of  others,  adjustments  are  learned  and  made  into  habits 
without  effort ;  in  fact,  the  process  of  imitation,  so  far  as 
it  is  instinctive,  is  a  source  of  pure  delight  to  the  young 
child.  Finally,  closely  related  to  these  two  instincts,  is 
the  native  tendency  to  rep)etition,  —  nature's  primary 
provision  for  drill.  You  have  often  heard  little  children 
repeat  their  new  words  over  and  over  again.  Frequently 
they  have  no  conception  of  the  meanings  of  these  words. 
Nature  seems  to  be  untroubled  by  a  question  that  has 
bothered  teachers ;  namely,  Should  a  child  ever  be 
asked  to  drill  on  something  the  purpose  of  which  he 
does  not  understand?  Nature  sees  to  it  that  certain 
essential  responses  become  automatic  long  before  the 
child   is   conscious    of    their   meaning.      Just    because 


220         CRAPTSMANSHIP  IN  TEACHING 

nature  does  this  is,  of  course,  no  reason  why  we  should 
imitate  her.  But  the  fact  is  an  interesting  conunentary 
upon  the  extreme  to  which  we  sometimes  carry  our 
principle  of  rationalizing  everything  before  permitting 
it  to  be  mastered. 

I  repeat  that  the  reform  movement  has  done  excellent 
service  in  extending  the  recognition  in  education  of  these 
fundamental  and  inborn  adaptive  instincts,  —  play,  imi- 
tation, and  rhythmic  repetition.  It  has  erred  when  it 
has  insisted  that  we  could  depend  upon  these  alone,  for 
nature  has  adapted  man,  not  to  the  complicated  con- 
ditions of  our  modern  highly  organized  social  life,  but 
rather  to  primitive  conditions.  Left  to  themselves,  these 
instinctive  forces  would  take  the  child  up  to  a  certain 
point,  but  they  would  still  leave  him  on  a  primitive  plane. 
I  know  of  one  good  authority  on  the  teaching  of  reading 
who  maintains  that  the  normal  child  would  learn  to  read 
without  formal  teaching  if  he  were  placed  in  the  right 
environment,  —  an  environment  of  books.  This  may  be 
possible  with  some  exceptional  children,  but  even  an 
environment  reasonably  replete  with  books  does  not  ef- 
fect this  miracle  in  the  case  of  certain  children  whom  I 
know  very  well  and  whom  I  like  to  think  of  as  perfectly 
normal.  These  children  learned  to  talk  by  imitation  and 
instinctive  repetition.  But  nature  has  not  yet  gone  so 
far  as  to  provide  the  average  child  with  spontaneous  im- 
pulses that  will  lead  him  to  learn  to  read.  Reading  is  a 
much  more  complicated  and  highly  organized  process. 


THE   NEW  ATTITUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  221 

And  SO  it  is  with  a  vast  number  of  the  activities  that  our 
pupils  must  master. 

Another  increment  of  progress  that  the  reform  move- 
ment has  given  to  educational  practice  is  a  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  we  have  been  requiring  pupils  to  acquire 
unnecessary  habits,  imder  the  impression,  that  even  if  the 
habits  were  not  useful,  something  of  value  was  gained  in 
their  acquisition.  As  a  result,  we  have  passed  all  of  our 
grain  through  the  same  mill,  unmindful  of  the  fact  that 
different  Ufe  activities  required  different  types  of  grist. 
To-day  we  are  seeing  the  need  for  carefully  selecting  the 
types  of  habit  and  skill  that  should  be  developed  in  all 
children.  We  are  recognizing  that  there  are  many  phases 
of  the  educative  process  that  it  is  not  well  to  reduce  to  an 
automatic  basis.  When  I  was  in  the  elementary  school 
I  memorized  Barnes's  History  of  the  United  States  and 
Harper's  Geography  from  cover  to  cover.  I  have  never 
greatly  regretted  this  automatic  mastery;  but  I  have 
often  thought  that  I  might  have  memorized  something 
rather  more  important,  for  history  and  geography  could 
have  been  mastered  just  as  effectively  in  another  way. 

In  the  third  place,  and  most  important  of  all,  we  have 
been  led  to  analyze  this  complex  process  of  habit  building, 
—  to  find  out  the  factors  that  operate  in  learning.  We 
have  now  a  goodly  body  of  principles  that  may  even  be 
characterized  by  the  adjective  "scientific."  We  know 
that  in  habit  building,  it  is  fundamentally  essential  to  get 
the  pupil  started  in  the  right  way.     A  recent  writer  states 


222  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

that  two  thirds  of  the  difl&culty  that  the  teacher  meets 
fixing  habits  is  due  to  the  neglect  of  this  principle.  Inad- 
equate and  inefficient  habits  get  started  and  must  be 
continually  combated  while  the  desirable  habit  is  being 
formed.  How  important  this  is  in  the  initial  presentation 
of  material  that  is  to  be  memorized  or  made  automatic  we 
are  just  now  beginning  to  appreciate.  One  writer  in- 
sists that  faulty  work  in  the  first  grade  is  responsible  for 
a  large  part  of  the  retardation  which  is  bothering  us  so 
much  to-day.  The  wrong  kind  of  a  start  is  made,  and 
whenever  a  faulty  habit  is  formed,  it  much  more  than 
doubles  the  difficulty  of  getting  the  right  one  well  under 
way.  We  are  slowly  coming  to  appreciate  how  much 
time  is  wasted  in  drill  processes  by  inadequate  methods. 
Technique  is  being  improved  and  the  time  thus  saved  is 
being  given  to  the  newer  content  subjects  that  are  de- 
manding admission  to  the  schools. 

Again,  we  are  coming  to  appreciate  as  never  before  the 
importance  of  motivating  our  drill  work,  —  of  not  only 
reading  into  it  purpose  and  meaning  so  that  the  pupil  will 
understand  what  it  is  all  for,  but  also  of  engendering  in 
him  the  desire  to  form  the  habits,  —  to  undergo  the  dis- 
cipline that  is  essential  for  mastery.  Here  again  the 
reform  movement  has  been  helpful,  showing  us  the  waste 
of  time  and  energy  that  results  from  attempting  to  fix 
habits  that  are  only  weakly  motivated. 

All  this  is  a  vastly  different  matter  from  sugar-coating 
the  drill  processes,  imder  the  mistaken  notion  that  some- 


THE   NEW   ATTITUDE    TOWARD   DRILL  22$ 

thing  that  is  worth  while  may  be  acquired  without  effort. 
I  think  that  educators  are  generally  agreed  that  such  a 
policy  is  thoroughly  bad,  —  for  it  subverts  a  basic  prin- 
ciple of  human  life  the  operation  of  which  neither  educa- 
tion nor  any  other  force  can  alter  or  reverse.  To  teach 
the  child  that  the  things  in  life  that  are  worth  doing  are 
easy  to  do,  or  that  they  are  always  or  even  often  intrinsi- 
cally pleasant  or  agreeable,  is  to  teach  him  a  lie.  Human 
history  gives  us  no  examples  of  worthy  achievements  that 
have  not  been  made  at  the  price  of  struggle  and  effort,  — 
at  the  price  of  doing  things  that  men  did  not  want  to  do. 
Every  great  truth  has  had  to  struggle  upward  from  defeat. 
Every  man  who  has  really  found  himself  in  the  work  of 
life  has  paid  the  price  of  sacrifice  for  his  success.  And 
whenever  we  attempt  to  give  our  pupils  a  mastery  of  the 
complicated  arts  and  skills  that  have  lifted  civilized  man 
above  the  plane  of  his  savage  ancestors,  we  must  expect 
from  them  struggle  and  effort  and  self-denial. 

Let  me  quote  a  paragraph  from  the  report  of  a  recent 
investigation  in  the  psychology  of  learning.  The  habit 
that  was  being  learned  in  this  experiment  was  skill  in  the 
use  of  the  typewriter.  The  writer  describes  the  process 
in  the  following  words : 

"In  the  early  stages  of  learning,  our  subjects  were  all  very  much 
interested  in  the  work.  Their  whole  mind  seemed  to  be  sponta- 
neously held  by  the  writing.  They  were  always  anxious  to  take  up 
the  work  anew  each  day.  Their  general  attitude  and  the  resultant 
sensations  constituted  a  pleasant  feeling  tone,  which  had  a  helpful 
reactionary  effect  upon  the  work.    Continued  practice,  however, 


224  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

brought  a  change.  In  place  of  the  spontaneous,  rapt  attention  of 
the  beginning  stages,  attention  tended,  at  certain  definite  stages  of 
advancement,  to  wander  away  from  the  work.  A  general  feeling 
of  monotony,  which  at  times  assumed  the  form  of  utter  disgust, 
took  the  place  of  the  former  pleasant  sensations  and  feelings, 
T^e, writing  became  a  disagreeable  task.  The  unpleasant  feeUngs 
now  present  in  consciousness  exerted  an  ever-restraining  effect  on 
the  work.  As  an  exp>ert  skill  was  approached,  however,  the 
learners'  attitude  and  mood  changed  again.  They  again  took  a 
keen  interest  in  the  work.  Their  whole  feeling  tone  once  more 
became  favorable,  and  the  movements  delightful  and  pleasant. 
The  expert  typist  ...  so  thoroughly  enjoyed  the  writing  that  it 
was  as  pleasant  as  the  spontaneous  play  activities  of  a  child.  But 
in  the  course  of  developing  this  permanent  interest  in  the  work, 
there  were  many  periods  in  nearly  every  test,  many  days,  as  well  as 
stages  in  the  practice  as  a  whole,  when  the  work  was  much  disliked, 
periods  when  the  learning  assumed  the  r61e  of  a  very  monotonous 
task.  Our  records  showed  that  at  such  times  as  these  no  progress 
was  made.  Rapid  progress  in  learning  typewriting  was  made  only 
when  the  learners  were  feeling  good  and  had  an  attitude  of  interest 
toward  the  work."  * 

Who  has  not  experienced  that  feeling  of  hopelessness 
and  despair  that  comes  at  these  successive  levels  of  the 
long  process  of  acquiring  skill  in  a  complicated  art? 
How  desperately  we  struggle  on  —  striving  to  put  every 
item  of  energy  that  we  can  command  into  our  work,  and 
yet  feeling  how  hopeless  it  all  seems.  How  tempting  then 
is  the  hammock  on  the  porch,  the  fascinating  novel  that 
we  have  placed  on  our  bedside  table,  the  happy  company 
of  friends  that  are  talking  and  laughing  in  the  next  room ; 
or  how  we  long  for  the  green  fields  and  the  open  road; 

*  W.  F.  Book,  Journal  of  Educational  Psychology,  vol.  i,  1910,  p.  195. 


THE   NEW  ATTrrUDE   TOWARD   DRILL  22$ 

how  seductive  is  that  siren  call  of  change  and  diversion, 
—  that  evil  spirit  of  procrastination  !  How  feeble,  too, 
are  the  efforts  that  we  make  under  these  conditions ! 
We  are  not  making  progress  in  our  art,  we  are  only  mark- 
ing time.  And  yet  the  psychologists  tell  us  that  this 
marking  time  is  an  essential  in  the  mastery  of  any  compli- 
cated art.  Somewhere,  deep  down  in  the  nervous  sys- 
tem, subtle  processes  are  at  work,  and  when  finally  in-- 
terest  dawns,  —  when  finally  hop)e  returns  to  us,  and 
life  again  becomes  worth  while,  —  these  heartbreaking 
struggles  reap  their  reward.  The  psychologists  call 
them  "plateaus  of  growth,"  but  some  one  has  said  that 
"sloughs  of  despond"  would  be  a  far  better  desig- 
nation. 

The  progress  of  any  individual  depends  upon  his  ability 
Jto.  pass  through  these  sloughs  of  despond,  —  to  set  his 
face  resolutely  to  the  task  and  persevere.  It  would  be 
the  idlest  folly  to  lead  children  to  believe  that  success 
or  achievement  or  even  passing  abiUty  can  be  gained  in 
any  other  manner.  And  this  is  the  danger  in  the  sugar- 
coating  process. 

But  motivation  does  not  mean  sugar-coating.  It 
means  the  development  of  purpose,  of  ambition,  of  in- 
centive. It  means  the  development  of  the  wilhngness 
to  undergo  the  discipline  in  order  that  the  purpose  may  be 
realized,  in  order  that  the  goal  may  be  attained.  It 
means  the  creating  of  those  conditions  that  make  for 
strength  and  virility  and  moral  fiber,  —  for  it  is  in  the 

Q 


226  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

consciousness  of  having  overcome  obstacles  and  won 
in  spite  of  handicaps,  —  it  is  in  this  consciousness  of 
conquest  that  mental  strength  and  moral  strength  have 
their  source.  The  victory  that  really  strengthens  one  is 
not  the  victory  that  has  come  easily,  but  the  victory 
that  stands  out  sharp  and  clear  against  the  background 
of  effort  and  struggle.  It  is  because  this  subjective 
contrast  is  so  absolutely  essential  to  the  consciousness  of 
power,  —  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  "sloughs  of  de- 
spond" still  have  their  function  in  our  new  attitude 
toward  drill. 

But  do  not  mistake  me :  I  have  no  sympathy  with  that 
educational  "  stand-pattism  "  that  would  multiply  these 
needlessly,  or  fail  to  build  solid  and  comfortable  highways 
across  them  wherever  it  is  possible  to  do  so.  I  have  no 
sympathy  with  that  philosophy  of  education  which  ap- 
proves the  placing  of  artificial  barriers  in  the  learner's 
path.  But  if  I  build  highways  across  the  morasses, 
it  is  only  that  youth  may  the  more  readily  traverse  the 
region  and  come  the  more  quickly  to  the  points  where 
struggle  is  absolutely  necessary. 

You  remember  in  George  Eliot's  Daniel  Deronda  the 
story  of  Gwendolen  Harleth.  Gwendolen  was  a  butterfly 
of  society,  a  young  woman  in  whose  childhood  drill  and 
discipline  had  found  no  place.  In  early  womanhood,  she 
was,  through  family  misfortune,  thrown  ui)on  her  own 
resources.  In  casting  about  for  some  means  of  self- 
support  her  first  recourse  was  to  music,  for  which  she  had 


THE   NEW  ATHTUDE   TOWARD  DRILL  227 

some  taste  and  in  which  she  had  had  some  slight  training. 
She  sought  out  her  old  German  music  teacher,  Klesmer, 
and  asked  him  what  she  might  do  to  turn  this  taste  and 
this  training  to  financial  account.  Klesmer's  reply  svmas 
up  in  a  nutshell  the  psychology  of  skill : 

"Any  great  achievement  in  acting  or  in  music  grows  with  the 
growth.  Whenever  an  artist  has  been  able  to  say,  'I  came,  I  saw, 
I  conquered,'  it  has  been  at  the  end  of  patient  practice.  Genius, 
at  firet,  is  little  more  than  a  great  capacity  for  receiving  disci- 
gUne.  Singing  and  acting,  like  the  fine  dexterity  of  the  juggler  with 
his  cup  and  balls,  require  a  shaping  of  the  organs  toward  a  finer 
and  finer  certainty  of  effect.  Your  muscles,  your  whole  frame, 
must  go  like  a  watch,  —  true,  true,  true,  to  a  hair.  This  is  the 
work  of  the  springtime  of  life  before  the  habits  have  been 
formed." 

And  I  can  formulate  my  own  conception  of  the  work  of 
habit  building  in  education  no  better  than  by  paraphras- 
ing KJesmer's  epigram.  To  increase  in  our  pupils  the 
capacity  to  receive  discipline;  to  show  them,  through 
concrete  example,  over  and  over  again,  how  persistence 
and  effort  and  concentration  bring  results  that  are 
worth  while;  to  choose  from  their  own  childish  experi- 
ences the  illustrations  that  will  force  this  lesson  home; 
to  supplement,  from  the  stories  of  great  achievements, 
those  illustrations  which  will  inspire  them  to  effort; 
to  lead  them  to  see  that  Peary  conquering  the  Pole, 
or  Wilbur  Wright  perfecting  the  aeroplane,  or  Morse 
struggling  through  long  years  of  hopelessness  and  dis- 
couragement to  give  the  world  the  electric  telegraph,  — 


228  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

to  show  them  that  these  men  went  through  experiences 
diflfering  only  in  degree  and  not  in  kind  from  those  which 
characterize  every  achievement,  no  matter  how  small,  so 
long  as  it  is  dominated  by  a  unitary  purpose ;  to  make 
the  inevitable  sloughs  of  despond  no  less  morasses,  per- 
haps, but  to  make  their  conquest  add  a  permanent  incre- 
ment to  growth  and  development :  this  is  the  task  of  our 
drill  work  as  I  view  it.  As  the  prophecy  of  Isaiah  has  it : 
"Precept  must  be  upon  precept ;  precept  upon  precept ; 
line  upon  line ;  hne  upon  line ;  here  a  little  and  there  a 
little."  And  if  we  can  succeed  in  giving  our  pupils  this 
vision,  —  if  we  can  reveal  the  deeper  meaning  of  struggle 
and  effort  and  self-denial  and  sacrifice  shining  out 
through  the  Uttle  details  of  the  day's  work,  —  we  are  our- 
selves achieving  something  that  is  richly  worth  while; 
for  the  highest  triumph  of  the  teacher's  art  is  to  get  his 
pupils  to  see,  in  the  small  and  seemingly  trivial  affairs  of 
everyday  life,  the  operation  of  fundamental  and  eternal 
principles. 


XII 

The  Ideal  Teacher^  ^ 

I  WISH  to  discuss  with  you  briefly  a  very  commonplace 
and  oft-repeated  theme,  —  a  theme  that  has  been  han- 
dled and  handled  until  its  once-glorious  raiment  is  now 
quite  threadbare ;  a  theme  so  full  of  pitfalls  and  dangers 
for  one  who  would  attempt  its  discussion  that  I  have  hesi- 
tated long  before  making  a  choice.  I  know  of  no  other 
theme  that  lends  itself  so  readily  to  a  superficial  treatment 
—  of  no  theme  upon  which  one  could  find  so  easily  at 
hand  all  of  the  proverbs  and  platitudes  and  maxims  that 
one  might  desire.  And  so  I  cannot  be  expected  to  say 
anything  upon  this  topic  that  has  not  been  said  before  in 
a  far  better  manner.  But,  after  all,  very  few  of  our 
thoughts  —  even  of  those  that  we  consider  to  be  the 
most  original  and  worth  while  —  are  really  new  to  the 
world.  Most  of  our  thoughts  have  been  thought 
before.  They  are  like  dolls  that  are  passed  on  from  age  to 
age  to  be  dressed  up  and  decorated  to  suit  the  taste  or  the 
fashion  or  the  fancy  of  each  succeeding  generation.  But 
even  a  new  dress  may  add  a  touch  of  newness  to  an  old 

*  An  address  to  the  graduating  class  of  the  Oswego,  New  York,  State 
Normal  S'.hool,  Februarj',  1908. 

239 


230  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

doll;  and  a  new  phrase  or  a  new  setting  may,  for  a 
moment,  rejuvenate  an  old  truth. 

The  topic  that  I  wish  to  treat  is  this,  "The  Ideal 
Teacher."  And  I  may  as  well  start  out  by  saying  that 
the  ideal  teacher  is  and  always  must  be  a  figment  of  the 
imagination.  This  is  the  essential  feature  of  any  ideal. 
The  ideal  man,  for  example,  must  possess  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  superlative  characteristics.  We  take  this  virtue 
from  one,  and  that  from  another,  and  so  on  indefinitely 
until  we  have  constructed  in  imagination  a  paragon,  the 
counterpart  of  which  could  never  exist  on  earth.  He 
would  have  all  the  virtues  of  all  the  heroes ;  but  he  would 
lack  all  their  defects  and  all  their  inadequacies.  He 
would  have  the  manners  of  a  Chesterfield,  the  courage 
of  a  Winkelried,  the  imagination  of  a  Dante,  the  eloquence 
of  a  Cicero,  the  wit  of  a  Voltaire,  the  intuitions  of  a  Shake- 
speare, the  magnetism  of  a  Napoleon,  the  patriotism  of  a 
Washington,  the  loyalty  of  a  Bismarck,  the  humanity  of 
a  Lincoln,  and  a  hundred  other  qualities,  each  the  counter- 
part of  some  superlative  quality,  drawn  from  the  historic 
figure  that  represented  that  quality  in  richest  measure. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  ideal  teacher :  he  would  combine, 
in  the  right  proportion,  all  of  the  good  qualities  of  all  of 
the  good  teachers  that  we  have  ever  known  or  heard  of. 
The  ideal  teacher  is  and  always  must  be  a  creature,  not 
of  flesh  and  blood,  but  of  the  imagination,  a  child  of  the 
brain.  And  perhaps  it  is  well  that  this  is  true;  for, 
if  he  existed  in  the  flesh,  it  would  not  take  very  many  of 


THE    IDEAL   TEACHER  23 1 

him  to  put  the  rest  of  us  out  of  business.  The  relentless 
law  of  compensation,  which  rules  that  unusual  growth  in 
one  direction  must  always  be  counterbalanced  by  defi- 
cient growth  in  another  direction,  is  the  saving  principle 
of  human  society.  That  a  man  should  be  superlatively 
good  in  one  single  line  of  effort  is  the  demand  of  modern 
life.  It  is  a  platitude  to  say  that  this  is  the  age  of  the 
specialist.  But  specialism,  while  it  always  means  a  gain 
to  society,  also  always  means  a  loss  to  the  individual. 
Darwin,  at  the  age  of  forty,  suddenly  awoke  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  a  man  of  one  idea.  Twenty  years  before,  he 
had  been  a  youth  of  the  most  varied  and  diverse  interests. 
He  had  enjoyed  music,  he  had  foimd  delight  in  the 
masterpieces  of  imaginative  literature,  he  had  felt  a  keen 
interest  in  the  drama,  in  poetry,  in  the  fine  arts.  But 
at  forty  Darwin  quite  by  accident  discovered  that  these 
things  had  not  attracted  him  for  years,  —  that  every 
increment  of  his  time  and  energy  was  concentrated  in  a 
constantly  increasing  measure  upon  the  imraveling  of 
that  great  problem  to  which  he  had  set  himself.  And  he 
lamented  bitterly  the  loss  of  these  other  interests;  he 
wondered  why  he  had  been  so  thoughtless  as  to  let  them 
slip  from  his  grasp.  It  was  the  same  old  story  of  human 
progress ;  the  sacrifice  of  the  individual  to  the  race.  For 
Darwin's  loss  was  the  world's  gain,  and  if  he  had  not 
limited  himself  to  one  line  of  effort,  and  given  himself 
up  to  that  work  to  the  exclusion  of  everything  else,  the 
world  might  still  be  waiting  for  the  Origin  of  Species,  and 


232  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

the  revolution  in  human  thought  and  human  life  which 
followed  in  the  wake  of  that  great  book.  Carlyle  defined 
genius  as  an  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains.  George 
Eliot  characterized  it  as  an  infinite  capacity  for  receiving 
discipline.  But  to  make  the  definition  complete,  we  need 
the  formulation  of  Goethe,  who  identified  genius  with  the 
power  of  concentration:  "Who  would  be  great  must 
limit  his  ambitions;  in  concentration  is  shown  the 
Master." 

And  so  the  great  men  of  history,  from  the  very  fact  of 
their  genius,  are  apt  not  to  correspond  with  what  our 
ideal  of  greatness  demands.  Indeed,  our  ideal  is  often 
more  nearly  reaHzed  in  men  who  fall  far  short  of  genius. 
When  I  studied  chemistry,  the  instructor  burned  a  bit  of 
diamond  to  prove  to  us  that  the  diamond  was,  after  all, 
only  carbon  in  an  "allotropic"  form.  There  seems  to  be 
a  similar  allotropy  working  in  human  nature.  Some  men 
seem  to  have  all  the  constituents  of  genius,  but  they 
never  reach  very  far  above  the  plane  of  the  commonplace. 
They  are  like  the  diamond,  —  except  that  they  are  more 
like  the  charcoal. 

I  wish  to  describe  to  you  a  teacher  who  was  not  a  genius, 
and  yet  who  possessed  certain  quaUties  that  I  should 
abstract  and  appropriate  if  I  were  to  construct  in  my 
imagination  an  ideal  teacher.  I  first  met  this  man  five 
years  ago  out  in  the  mountain  country.  I  can  recall 
the  occasion  with  the  most  vivid  distinctness.  It  was  a 
sparkling  morning,  in  middle  May.     The  valley  was  just 


THE    roEAL   TEACHER  233 

beginning  to  green  a  little  under  the  influence  of  the 
lengthening  days,  but  on  the  surrounding  mountains  the 
snow  line  still  hung  low.  I  had  just  settled  down  to  my 
morning's  work  when  word  was  brought  that  a  visitor 
wished  to  see  me,  and  a  moment  later  he  was  shown  into 
the  ofl5ce.  He  was  tall  and  straight,  with  square  shoul- 
ders and  a  deep  chest.  His  hair  was  gray,  and  a  rather 
long  white  beard  added  to  the  effect  of  age,  but  detracted 
not  an  iota  from  the  evidences  of  strength  and  vigor. 
He  had  the  look  of  a  Westerner,  —  of  a  man  who  had 
lived  much  of  his  life  in  the  open.  There  was  a  rugged- 
ness  about  him,  a  sturdy  strength  that  told  of  many  a 
day's  toil  along  the  trail,  and  many  a  night's  sleep  under 
the  stars. 

In  a  few  words  he  stated  the  purpose  of  his  visit.  He 
simply  wished  to  do  what  half  a  hundred  others  in  the 
course  of  the  year  had  entered  that  office  for  the  purpose 
of  doing.  He  wished  to  enroll  as  a  student  in  the  college 
and  to  prepare  himself  for  a  teacher.  This  was  not  ordi- 
narily a  startling  request,  but  hitherto  it  had  been  made 
only  by  those  who  were  just  starting  out  on  the  highroad 
of  life.  Here  was  a  man  advanced  in  years.  He  told 
me  that  he  was  sixty-five,  and  sixty-five  in  that  country 
meant  old  age;  for  the  region  had  but  recently  been 
settled,  and  most  of  the  people  were  either  young  or 
middle-aged.  The  only  old  men  in  the  country  were  the 
few  surviving  pioneers,  —  men  who  had  come  in  away 
back  in  the  early  days  of  the  mining  fever,  long  before 


234  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

the  advent  of  the  railroad.  They  had  trekked  across  the 
plains  from  Omaha,  and  up  through  the  mountainous 
passes  of  the  Oregon  trail ;  or,  a  little  later,  they  had  come 
by  steamboat  from  St.  Louis  up  the  twelve-hundred-mile 
stretch  of  the  Missouri  until  their  progress  had  been 
stopped  by  the  Great  Falls  in  the  very  foothills  of  the 
Rockies.  What  heroes  were  these  graybeards  of  the 
mountains!  What  possibilities  in  knowing  them,  of  lis- 
tening to  the  recounting  of  tales  of  the  early  days, — of 
running  fights  with  the  Indians  on  the  plains,  of  ambush- 
ments  by  desperadoes  in  the  mountain  passes,  of  the  lurid 
life  of  the  early  mining  camps,  and  the  desperate  deeds 
of  the  Vigilantes!  And  here,  before  me,  was  a  man  of 
that  type.  You  could  read  the  main  facts  of  his  history 
in  the  very  lines  of  his  face.  And  this  man  —  one  of 
that  small  band  whom  the  whole  country  united  to 
honor  —  this  man  wanted  to  become  a  student,  —  to  sit 
among  adolescent  boys  and  girls,  listening  to  the  lectures 
and  discussions  of  instructors  who  were  babes  in  arms 
when  he  was  a  man  of  middle  life. 

But  there  was  no  doubt  of  his  determination.  With 
the  eagerness  of  a  boy,  he  outlined  his  plan  to  me ;  and  in 
doing  this,  he  told  me  the  story  of  his  life,  —  just  the 
barest  facts  to  let  me  know  that  he  was  not  a  man  to  do 
things  half-heartedly,  or  to  drop  a  project  until  he  had 
carried  it  through  either  to  a  successful  issue,  or  to  indis- 
putable defeat. 

And  what  a  life  that  man  had  lived  !    He  had  been  a 


THE   IDEAL  TEACHER  235 

youth  of  promise,  keen  of  intelligence  and  quick  of  wit. 
He  had  spent  two  years  at  a  college  in  the  Middle  West 
back  in  the  early  sixties.  He  had  left  his  course  uncom- 
pleted to  enter  the  army,  and  he  had  followed  the  fortunes 
of  war  through  the  latter  part  of  the  great  rebellion.  At 
the  close  of  the  war  he  went  West.  He  farmed  in  Kan- 
sas until  the  drought  and  the  grasshoppers  urged  him 
on.  He  joined  the  first  surveying  party  that  picked  out 
the  line  of  the  transcontinental  railroad  that  was  to 
follow  the  southern  route  along  the  old  Santa  Fe  trail. 
He  carried  the  chain  and  worked  the  transit  across  the 
Rockies,  across  the  desert,  across  the  Sierras,  until,  with 
his  companions,  he  had  — 

"  led  the  iron  stallions  down  to  drink 
Through  the  canons  to  the  waters  of  the  West." 

And  when  this  task  was  accomplished,  he  followed  the 
lure  of  the  gold  through  the  California  placers ;  eastward 
again  over  the  mountains  to  the  booming  Nevada  camp, 
where  the  Comstock  lode  was  already  turning  out  the 
wealth  that  was  to  build  a  half-dozen  colossal  fortunes. 
He  "prospected"  through  this  country,  with  varying 
success,  living  the  life  of  the  camps,  —  rich  in  its  experi- 
ences, vivid  in  its  coloring,  calling  forth  every  item  of 
energy  and  courage  and  hardihood  that  a  man  could 
command.  Then  word  came  by  that  mysterious  wireless 
and  keyless  telegraphy  of  the  mountains  and  the  desert, 
—  word  that  back  to  the  eastward,  ore  deposits  of  imtold 


236  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

wealth  had  been  discovered.  So  eastward  once  more, 
with  the  stampede  of  the  miners,  he  turned  his  face. 
He  was  successful  at  the  outset  in  this  new  region.  He 
quickly  accumulated  a  fortune ;  he  lost  it  and  amassed 
another;  lost  that  and  still  gained  a  third.  Five  suc- 
cessive fortunes  he  made  successively,  and  successively 
he  lost  them.  But  during  this  time  he  had  become  a 
man  of  power  and  influence  in  the  community.  He 
married  and  raised  a  family  and  saw  his  children  com- 
fortably settled. 

But  when  his  last  fortune  was  swept  away,  the  old 
Wanderlust  again  claimed  its  own.  Houses  and  lands  and 
mortgages  and  mills  and  mines  had  shpped  from  his  grasp. 
But  it  mattered  Uttle.  He  had  only  himself  to  care  for, 
and,  with  pick  and  pan  strapped  to  his  saddlebow,  he  set 
his  face  westward.  Along  the  ridges  of  the  high  Rockies, 
through  Wyoming  and  Montana,  he  wandered,  ever  on 
the  lookout  for  the  glint  of  gold  in  the  white  quartz. 
Little  by  little  he  moved  westward,  picking  up  a  sufficient 
living,  until  he  found  himself  one  winter  shut  in  by  the 
snows  in  a  remote  valley  on  the  upper  waters  of  the  Galla- 
tin River.  He  stopped  one  night  at  a  lonely  ranch  house. 
In  the  course  of  the  evening  his  host  told  him  of  a  catas- 
trophe that  had  befallen  the  widely  scattered  inhabitants 
of  that  remote  valley.  The  teacher  of  the  district  school 
had  fallen  sick,  and  there  was  little  likelihood  of  their 
getting  another  until  spring. 

That  is  a  true  catastrophe  to  the  ranchers  of  the  high 


THE   IDEAL   TEACHER  237 

valleys  cut  off  from  every  line  of  communication  with  the 
outer  world.  For  the  opportunities  of  education  are 
highly  valued  in  that  part  of  the  West.  They  are 
reckoned  with  bread  and  horses  and  cattle  and  sheep, 
as  among  the  necessities  of  life.  The  children  were 
crying  for  school,  and  their  parents  could  not  satisfy 
that  peculiar  kind  of  hunger.  But  here  was  the  relief. 
This  wanderer  who  had  arrived  in  their  midst  was  a 
man  of  parts.  He  was  lettered;  he  was  educated. 
Would  he  do  them  the  favor  of  teaching  their  children 
until  the  snow  had  melted  av/ay  from  the  ridges,  and  his 
cayuse  could  pick  the  trail  through  the  canons  ? 

Now  school-keeping  was  farthest  from  this  man's 
thoughts.  But  the  needs  of  Uttle  children  were  very 
near  to  his  heart.  He  accepted  the  offer,  and  entered 
the  log  schoolhouse  as  the  district  schoolmaster,  while  a 
handful  of  pupils,  numbering  all  the  children  of  the  com- 
munity who  could  ride  a  broncho,  came  five,  ten,  and 
even  fifteen  miles  daily,  through  the  winter's  snows  and 
storms  and  cruel  cold,  to  pick  up  the  crumbs  of  learning 
that  had  lain  so  long  untouched. 

What  happened  in  that  lonely  little  school,  far  off  on 
the  Gallatin  bench,  I  never  rightly  discovered.  But  when 
spring  opened  up,  the  master  sold  his  cayuse  and  his  pick 
and  his  rifle  and  the  other  implements  of  his  trade.  With 
the  earnings  of  the  winter  he  made  his  way  to  the  school 
that  the  state  had  established  for  the  training  of  teachers ; 
and  I  count  it  as  one  of  the  privileges  of  my  life  that  I 


238  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

was  the  first  oflScial  of  that  school  to  listen  to  his  story  and 
to  welcome  him  to  the  vocation  that  he  had  chosen  to 
follow. 

And  yet,  when  I  looked  at  his  face,  drawn  into  lines  of 
strength  by  years  of  battle  with  the  elements;  when  I 
looked  at  the  clear,  blue  eyes,  that  told  of  a  far  cleaner 
life  than  is  lived  by  one  in  a  thousand  of  those  that  hold 
the  frontiers  of  civilization ;  when  I  caught  an  expression 
about  the  mouth  that  told  of  an  innate  humanity  far 
beyond  the  power  of  worldly  losses  or  misfortunes  to 
crush  and  subdue,  I  could  not  keep  from  my  lips  the  words 
that  gave  substance  to  my  thought ;  and  the  thought  was 
this :  that  it  were  far  better  if  we  who  were  supposed  to 
be  competent  to  the  task  of  education  should  sit  rever- 
ently at  the  feet  of  this  man,  than  that  we  should  presume 
to  instruct  him.  For  knowledge  may  come  from  books, 
and  even  youth  may  possess  it,  but  wisdom  comes  only 
from  experience,  and  this  man  had  that  wisdom  in  far 
greater  measure  than  we  of  books  and  laboratories  and 
classrooms  could  ever  hope  to  have  it.  He  had  Uved 
years  while  we  were  living  days. 

I  thought  of  a  learned  scholar  who,  through  patient 
labor  in  amassing  facts,  had  demonstrated  the  influence 
of  the  frontier  in  the  development  of  our  national  ideals ; 
who  had  pointed  out  how,  at  each  successive  stage  of 
American  history,  the  heroes  of  the  frontier,  pushing 
farther  and  farther  into  the  wilderness,  conquering  first 
the  low  coastal  plain  of  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  then  the 


THE   IDEAL   TEACHER  239 

forested  foothills  and  ridges  of  the  Appalachians,  had 
finally  penetrated  into  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and,  sub- 
duing that,  had  followed  on  westward  to  the  prairies, 
and  then  to  the  great  plains,  and  then  clear  across  the 
great  divide,  the  alkali  deserts,  and  the  Sierras,  to  Cali- 
fornia and  the  Pacific  Coast;  how  these  frontiersmen, 
at  every  stage  of  our  history,  had  sent  back  wave  after 
wave  of  strength  and  virility  to  keep  alive  the  sturdy 
ideals  of  toil  and  effort  and  independence,  —  ideals  that 
would  counteract  the  mellowing  and  softening  and  de- 
generating influences  of  the  hothouse  civilization  that 
grew  up  so  rapidly  in  the  successive  regions  that  they 
left  behind.  Turner's  theory  that  most  of  what  is  typ- 
ical and  unique  in  American  institutions  and  ideals  owes 
its  existence  to  the  backset  of  the  frontier  life  found  a 
living  exemplar  in  the  man  who  stood  before  me  on  that 
May  morning. 

But  he  would  not  be  discouraged  from  his  purpose. 
He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  complete  the  course  that  the 
school  offered ;  to  take  up  the  thread  of  his  education  at 
the  point  where  he  had  dropped  it  more  than  forty  years 
before.  He  had  made  up  his  mind,  and  it  was  easy  to  see 
that  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  deterred  from  a  set  purpxjse. 

I  shall  not  hide  the  fact  that  some  of  us  were  skeptical 
of  the  outcome.  That  a  man  of  sixty-five  should  have 
a  thirst  for  learning  was  not  remarkable.  But  that  a  man 
whose  life  had  been  spent  in  scenes  of  excitement,  who 
had  been  associated  with  deeds  and  events  that  stir 


240  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

the  blood  when  we  read  of  them  to-day,  a  man  who  had 
lived  almost  every  moment  of  his  life  in  the  open,  —  that 
such  a  man  could  settle  down  to  the  uneventful  Ufe  of  a 
student  and  a  teacher,  could  shut  himself  up  within  the 
four  walls  of  a  classroom,  could  find  anything  to  inspire 
and  hold  him  in  the  dull  presentation  of  facts  or  the  dry 
elucidation  of  theories,  —  this  seemed  to  be  a  miracle 
not  to  be  expected  in  this  realistic  age.  But,  miracle  or 
not,  the  thing  actually  happened.  He  remained  nearly 
four  years  in  the  school,  earning  his  Hving  by  work  that 
he  did  in  the  intervals  of  study,  and  doing  it  so  well  that, 
when  he  graduated,  he  had  not  only  his  education  and  the 
diploma  which  stood  for  it,  but  also  a  bank  account. 

He  lived  in  a  little  cabin  by  himself,  for  he  wished  to 
be  where  he  would  not  disturb  others  when  he  sang  or 
whistled  over  his  work  in  the  small  hours  of  the  night. 
But  his  meals  he  took  at  the  college  dormitory,  where  he 
presided  at  a  table  of  young  women  students.  Never 
was  a  man  more  popular  with  the  ladies  than  this  weather- 
beaten  patriarch  with  the  girls  of  his  table.  No  matter 
how  gloomy  the  day  might  be,  one  could  always  find 
sunshine  from  that  quarter.  No  matter  how  grievous  the 
troubles  of  work,  there  was  always  a  bit  of  cheerful  opti- 
mism from  a  man  who  had  tasted  almost  every  joy  and 
sorrow  that  life  had  to  offer.  If  one  were  in  a  blue  funk 
of  dejection  because  of  failure  in  a  class,  he  would  lend  the 
sympathy  that  came  from  his  own  rich  experience  in 
failures,  —  not  only  past  but  present,  for  some  things  that 


THE   IDEAL   TEACHER  241 

come  easy  at  sixteen  come  hard  at  sixty-five,  and  this  man 
who  would  accept  no  favors  had  to  fight  his  way  through 
"flunks"  and  "goose-eggs"  like  the  younger  members  of 
the  class.  And  even  with  it  all  so  complete  an  embodi- 
ment of  hope  and  courage  and  wholesome  Ught-hearted- 
ness  would  be  hard  to  find.  He  was  an  optimist  because 
he  had  learned  long  since  that  anything  but  optimism 
is  a  crime ;  and  learning  this  in  early  life,  optimism  had 
become  a  deeply  seated  and  ineradicable  prejudice  in  his 
mind.  He  could  not  have  been  gloomy  if  he  had  tried. 
And  so  this  man  fought  his  way  through  science  and 
mathematics  and  philosophy,  slowly  but  surely,  just  as 
he  had  fought  inch  by  inch  and  link  by  link,  across  the 
Arizona  desert  years  before.  It  was  a  much  harder  fight, 
for  all  the  force  of  Ufelong  habit,  than  which  there  is  none 
other  so  powerful,  was  against  him  from  the  start.  And 
now  came  the  human  temptation  to  be  off  on  the  old  trail, 
to  saddle  his  horse  and  get  a  pick  and  a  pan  and  make  off 
across  the  western  range  to  the  golden  land  that  always 
lies  just  under  the  sunset.  How  often  that  turbulent 
Wanderlust  seized  him,  I  can  only  conjecture.  But  I 
know  the  spirit  of  the  wanderer  was  always  strong  within 
him.     He  could  say,  with  Kipling's  rram/>i?oya/. • 

"It's  like  a  book,  I  think,  this  bloomin'  world, 
Which  you  can  read  and  care  for  just  so  long, 
But  presently  you  feel  that  you  will  die 
Unless  you  get  the  page  you're  reading  done, 
An'  turn  another  —  Ukely  not  so  good ; 
But  what  you're  after  is  to  txim  them  all." 


242  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN  TEACHING 

And  I  knew  that  he  fought  that  temptation  over  and 
over  again ;  for  that  little  experience  out  on  the  Gallatin 
bench  had  only  partially  turned  his  life  from  the  channels 
of  wandering,  although  it  had  bereft  him  of  the  old  desire 
to  seek  for  gold.  Often  he  outlined  to  me  a  well-for- 
mulated plan;  perhaps  he  had  to  tell  some  one,  lest  the 
fever  should  take  too  strong  a  hold  upon  him,  and 
force  his  surrender.  His  plan  was  this :  He  would  teach 
a  term  here  and  there,  gradually  working  his  way  west- 
ward, always  toward  the  remote  corners  of  the  earth 
into  which  his  roving  instinct  seemed  unerringly  to  lead 
him.  Alaska,  Hawaii,  and  the  Philippines  seemed  easy 
enough  to  access;  surely,  he  thought,  teachers  must 
be  needed  in  all  those  regions.  And  when  he  should 
have  turned  these  pages,  he  might  have  mastered  his 
vocation  in  a  degree  sufl&cient  to  warrant  his  attempting 
an  alien  soil.  Then  he  would  sail  away  into  the  South 
Seas,  with  New  Zealand  and  Australia  as  a  base.  And 
gradually  moving  westward  through  English-speaking 
settlements  and  colonies  he  would  finally  complete  the 
circuit  of  the  globe. 

And  the  full  fruition  of  that  plan  might  have  formed 
a  fitting  climax  to  my  tale,  were  I  telling  it  for  the  sake 
of  its  romance ;  but  my  purpose  demands  a  different  con- 
clusion. My  hero  is  now  principal  of  schools  in  a  Httle 
city  of  the  mountains,  —  a  city  so  tiny  that  its  name 
would  be  unknown  to  most  of  you.  And  I  have  heard 
vague  rumors  that  he  is  rising  rapidly  in  his  profession  and 


THE    IDEAL   TEACHER  243 

that  the  community  he  serves  will  not  listen  to  anything 
but  a  permanent  tenure  of  his  office.  All  of  which  seems 
to  indicate  to  me  that  he  has  abandoned,  for  the  while  at 
least,  his  intention  to  turn  quite  all  the  pages  of  the 
world's  great  book,  and  is  content  to  live  true  to  the  ideal 
that  was  bom  in  the  log  schoolhouse  —  the  conviction 
that  the  true  life  is  the  life  of  service,  and  that  the  love 
of  wandering  and  the  lure  of  gold  are  only  siren  calls 
that  lead  one  always  toward,  but  never  to,  the  promised 
land  of  dreams  that  seems  to  lie  just  over  the  western 
range  where  the  pink  sunset  stands  sharp  against  the 
purple  shadows. 

The  ending  of  my  story  is  prosaic,  but  everything  in 
this  world  is  prosaic,  unless  you  view  it  either  in  the  per- 
spective of  time  or  space,  or  in  the  contrasts  that  bring 
out  the  high  hghts  and  deepen  the  shadows. 

But  if  I  have  left  my  hero  happily  married  to  his  pro- 
fession, the  courtship  and  winning  of  which  formed  the 
theme  of  my  tale,  I  may  be  permitted  to  indulge  in  a  very 
little  moralizing  of  a  rather  more  explicit  sort  than  I  have 
yet  attempted. 

It  is  a  simple  matter  to  construct  in  imagination  an 
ideal  teacher.  Mix  with  immortal  youth  and  abounding 
health,  a  maximal  degree  of  knowledge  and  a  maximal 
degree  of  experience,  add  perfect  tact,  the  spirit  of  true 
service,  the  most  perfect  patience,  and  the  most  steadfast 
persistence ;  place  in  the  crucible  of  some  good  normal 
school;    stir  in  twenty  weeks  of  standard  psychology, 


244  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

ten  weeks  of  general  method,  and  varying  amounts  of  pat- 
ent compounds  known  as  special  methods,  all  warranted 
pure  and  without  drugs  or  poison ;  sweeten  with  a  little 
music,  toughen  with  fifteen  weeks  of  logic,  bring  to  a  slow 
boil  in  the  practice  school,  and,  while  still  sizzling,  turn 
loose  on  a  cold  world.  The  formula  is  simple  and  com- 
plete, but  like  many  another  good  recipe,  a  competent 
cook  might  find  it  hard  to  follow  when  she  is  short  of 
butter  and  must  shamefully  skimp  on  the  eggs. 

Now  the  man  whose  history  I  have  recounted  repre- 
sents the  most  priceless  qualities  of  this  formula.  In  the 
first  place  he  possessed  that  quality  the  key  to  which  the 
philosophers  of  all  ages  have  sought  in  vain,  —  he  had 
solved  the  problem  of  eternal  youth.  At  the  age  of  sixty- 
five  his  enthusiasm  was  the  enthusiasm  of  an  adolescent. 
His  energy  was  the  energy  of  an  adolescent.  Despite 
his  gray  hair  and  white  beard,  his  mind  was  perennially 
young.  And  that  is  the  only  type  of  mind  that  ought 
to  be  concerned  with  the  work  of  education.  I  sometimes 
think  that  one  of  the  advantages  of  a  practice  school  Ues 
in  the  fact  that  the  teachers  who  have  direct  charge  of 
the  pupils  —  whatever  may  be  their  Hmitations  —  have 
at  least  the  virtue  of  youth,  the  virtue  of  being  young. 
If  they  could  only  learn  from  my  hero  the  art  of  keep- 
ing young,  of  keeping  the  mind  fresh  and  vigorous  and 
open  to  whatever  is  good  and  true,  no  matter  how  novel 
a  form  it  may  take,  they  might,  like  him,  preserve  their 
youth  indefinitely.    And  I  think  that  his  life  gives  us 


THE   IDEAL   TEACHER  245 

one  clew  to  the  secret,  —  to  keep  as  close  as  we  can  to 
nature,  for  nature  is  always  young ;  to  sing  and  to  whistle 
when  we  would  rather  weep;  to  cheer  and  comfort 
when  we  would  rather  crush  and  dishearten;  often  to 
dare  something  just  for  the  sake  of  daring,  for  to  be  young 
is  to  dare ;  and  always  to  wonder,  for  that  is  the  prime 
symptom  of  youth,  and  when  a  man  ceases  to  wonder, 
age  and  decrepitude  are  waiting  for  him  around  the  next 
corner. 

It  is  the  privilege  of  the  teaching  craft  to  represent 
more  adequately  than  any  other  calling  the  conditions 
for  remaining  young.  There  is  time  for  living  out- 
of-doors,  which  some  of  us,  alas !  do  not  do.  And 
youth,  with  its  high  hope  and  lofty  ambition,  with  its 
resolute  daring  and  its  naive  wonder,  surrounds  us  on 
every  side.  And  yet  how  rapidly  some  of  us  age  !  How 
quickly  life  seems  to  lose  its  zest !  How  completely  are 
we  blind  to  the  opportunities  that  are  on  every  hand  ! 

And  closely  related  to  this  virtue  of  being  always  young, 
in  fact  growing  out  of  it,  the  ideal  teacher  will  have,  as 
my  hero  had,  the  gift  of  gladness,  —  that  joy  of  hving 
which  takes  life  for  granted  and  proposes  to  make  the 
most  of  every  moment  of  consciousness  that  it  brings. 

And  finally,  to  balance  these  qualities,  to  keep  them  in 
leash,  the  ideal  teacher  should  possess  that  spirit  of  serv- 
ice, that  conviction  that  the  life  of  service  is  the  only  life 
worth  while  —  that  conviction  for  which  my  hero  strug- 
gled so  long  and  against  such  tremendous  odds.     The 


246  CRAFTSMANSHIP   IN   TEACHING 

spirit  of  service  must  always  be  the  cornerstone  of  the 
teaching  craft.  To  know  that  any  life  which  does  not 
provide  the  opportunities  for  service  is  not  worth  the 
living,  and  that  any  Ufe,  however  humble,  that  does 
provide  these  opportunities  is  rich  beyond  the  reach  of 
earthly  rewards,  —  this  is  the  first  lesson  that  the  tyro 
in  Schoolcraft  must  learn,  be  he  sixteen  or  sixty-five. 

And  just  as  youth  and  hope  and  the  gift  of  gladness  are 
the  eternal  verities  on  one  side  of  the  picture,  so  the  spirit 
of  service,  the  spirit  of  sacrifice,  is  the  eternal  verity  that 
forms  their  true  complement ;  without  whose  compensa- 
tion, hope  were  but  idle  dreaming,  and  laughter  a  hollow 
mockery.  And  self-denial,  which  is  the  keynote  of  serv- 
ice, is  the  great  sobering,  justifying,  eternal  factor  that 
symbolizes  humanity  more  perfectly  than  anything  else. 
In  the  introduction  to  Romola,  George  EUot  pictures  a 
spirit  of  the  past  who  returns  to  earth  four  hundred 
years  after  his  death,  and  looks  down  upon  his  native  city 
of  Florence.  And  I  can  conclude  with  no  better  words 
than  those  in  which  George  Eliot  voices  her  advice  to 
that  shade : 

"  Go  not  down,  good  Spirit :  for  the  changes  are  great  and  the 
speech  of  the  Florentines  would  sound  as  a  riddle  in  your  ears.  Or, 
if  you  go,  mingle  with  no  politicians  on  the  marmi,  or  elsewhere ; 
ask  no  questions  about  trade  in  Calimara ;  confuse  yourself  with  no 
inquiries  into  scholarship,  official  or  monastic.  Only  look  at  the 
sunlight  and  shadows  on  the  grand  walls  that  were  built  solidly 
and  have  endured  in  their  grandeur ;  look  at  the  faces  of  the  little 
children,  making  another  sunUght  amid  the  shadows  of  age ;  look,  if 
you  will,  into  the  churches  and  hear  the  same  chants,  see  the  same 


THE   IDEAL   TEACHER  247 

images  as  of  old  —  the  images  of  willing  anguish  for  a  great  end,  of 
beneficent  love  and  ascending  glory,  see  upturned  Uving  faces,  and 
lips  moving  to  the  old  prayers  for  help.  These  things  have  not 
changed.  The  sunlight  and  the  shadows  bring  their  old  beauty  and 
waken  the  old  heart-strains  at  morning,  noon,  and  even-tide; 
the  little  children  are  still  the  symbol  of  the  eternal  marriage  be- 
tween love  and  duty ;  and  men  still  yearn  for  the  reign  of  peace  and 
righteousness  —  still  own  that  life  to  be  the  best  which  is  a  con- 
scious voluntary  sacrifice." 


'T^HE  following  pages  contain  advertisements  of 
books  by  the  same  author  or  on  kindred  subjects 


By  WILLIAM  CHANDLER  BAGLEY 

Superintendent  of  the  Training  Department,  State  Normal  School, 
Oswego,  N.Y. 

Classroom  Management : 

Its  Principles  £ind  Technique 

Cloth,  xvii  +  332  pages,  $i.2j  net 

This  book  considers  the  problems  that  are  consequent  upon  the  massing 
of  children  together  for  purposes  of  instruction  and  training.  It  aims  to 
discover  how  the  unit-group  of  the  school  system  —  the  "  class  "  —  can  be 
most  effectively  handled.  The  topics  commonly  included  in  treatises  upon 
school  management  receive  adequate  attention ;  the  first  day  of  school ; 
the  mechanizing  of  routine;  the  daily  programme;  discipline  and  pun- 
ishment; absence  and  tardiness,  etc.  In  addition  to  these,  however,  a 
number  of  subjects  hitherto  neglected  in  books  of  this  class  are  presented ; 
the  "  Batavia  system  "  of  class-individual  instruction ;  different  plans  for 
testing  the  efficiency  of  teaching;  a  new  treatment  of  incentives  based 
upon  modem  psychology,  and  a  formulation  of  the  generally  accepted 
principles  of  professional  ethics  as  applied  to  Schoolcraft.  Appendices 
include  plates  showing  the  quality  of  work  that  can  be  expected  from 
pupils  of  different  grades  and  syllabi  of  topics  and  questions  for  the  use  of 
"  observation  "  classes. 

The  ELducative  Process 

Cloth,  xix  +  JjS  pages,  $r.2^  net 

The  book  aims  to  prevent  a  waste  of  energy  on  the  part  of  the  young 
teacher  by  setting  forth  a  systematic  and  comprehensive  view  of  the  task 
that  is  to  be  accomplished  by  the  school,  with  the  working  principles  for 
the  attainment  of  the  end.  The  best  idea  for  the  author's  plan  of  treat- 
ment can  be  had  from  his  division  of  the  book.  Part  I  discusses  the 
function  of  education  and  of  the  school  in  biological  and  sociolc^cal 
terms.  Part  II  continues  the  same  topic  from  the  psychological  stand- 
point. Part  III  deals  with  the  functioning  of  experience  in  its  relation  to 
the  educative  process.  Part  IV  treats  of  the  relation  of  education  to  the 
three  periods  of  child-development:  the  transitional,  the  formative,  the 
adolescent.  Part  V  considers  Mucational  values  and  the  necessity  of 
ideals  in  the  educative  process,  and  Part  VI  concludes  with  the  technique 
of  teaching. 

THE    MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Atuiim,  Haw  York 


The  Macmillan  Pedagogical  Library 

Sixteen  volumes,  4.700  pages,  price,  $12.00 

This  Library  consists  of  sixteen  helpful  and  stimulating  professional 
books  from  our  list  of  publications.  In  order  to  make  these  books  as 
attractive  as  possible,  a  binding  new  and  uniform  in  style  has  been  de- 
signed. They  are  handsomely  bound  in  green  cloth,  i2mo,  with  gilt 
stamp  on  the  back.  The  print  is  large  and  clear,  and  the  paper  of  fine 
quality. 

It  will  be  found  that  practically  every  topic  of  interest  to  teachers 
professionally  has  been  treated,  from  many  points  of  view,  in  the  more 
than  two  hundred  (2CX))  chapters  contained  in  the  Pedagogical  Library. 
The  press  notices  and  comments  by  practical  educators  all  over  the 
country,  many  of  whom  have  not  only  read  the  books  but  also  used  them 
in  classes,  furnish  abundant  evidence  that  they  are  thoroughly  scientific  in 
every  respect  and  yet  not  so  technical  as  to  make  it  difficult  for  the  aver- 
age teacher  to  read  them  with  pleasure  and  profit. 

The  titles  are  as  follows: 

I.  The  Philosophy  of  Education 

By  Herman  H.  Horne,  Assistant  Professor  of  Philosophy  and 
Education,  Dartmouth  G^Uege. 

n.  The  Meaning  of  Education 

By  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of  Columbia  University. 

m.  Outlines  of  Psychology 

By  JosLUi  RoYCE,  Professor  of  the  History  of  Philosophy,  Harvard 
University. 

IV.  The  Physical  Nature  of  the  Child 

By  Stuart  H.  Rowe,  Professor  of  Psychology  and  the  History  of 
Education,  Training  School  for  Teachers,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

V.  Fundamentals  of  Child  Study 

By  Edwin  A.  Kirkpatrick,  Department  of  Psychology  and  Child 
Study,  State  Normal  School,  Fitcbburg,  Mass. 


VI.  School  Hygiene 

By  the  late  Edward  R.  Shaw. 

Vn.  Interest  and  Education 

By  Charles  DeGarmo,  Professor  of  the  Science  and  Art  of  Edu- 
cation, Cornell  University. 

Vm.  The  Teaching  of  English  - 

By  Percival  Chubb,  Principal  of  High  School  Department,  Ethi- 
cal Culture  School,  New  York  City. 

IX.  The  Teaching  of  Elementary  Mathematics 

By  David  Eugene  Smith,  Professor  of  Mathematics,  Teachers 
College,  Columbia  University. 

X.  The  Elements  of  General  Method 

By  Charles  A.  McMurrv. 

XI.  The  Method  of  the  Recitation 

By  Charles  A.  McMurry  and  Frank  M.  McMurry,  Professor  of 
the  Theory  and  Practice  of  Teaching,  Teachers  College,  Columbia 
University. 

Xn.   Special  Method  in  Primary  Reading 

By  Charles  A.  McMurry. 

Xm.  Special  Method  in  Elementary  Science 

By  Charles  A.  McMurry. 

XIV.  Special  Method  in  Geography 
By  Charles  A.  McMurry. 

XV.   Special  Method  in  the  Reading  of  English  Classics 
By  Charles  A.  McMurry. 

XVI.  Special  Method  in  History 
By  Charles  A.  McMurry. 


THE   MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

64-66  Fifth  Avenue,  New  Tork 


A  Cyclopedia  of  Education 

Edited  by  PAUL  MONROE,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  the  History  of  Education,  Teachers  College,  Columbia  University ; 

Author  of  "A  Text-Book  in  the  History  of  Education,"  "  Brief 

Course  in  the  History  of  Education,"  etc 


The  need  of  such  work  is  evidenced :  By  the  great  mass  of  varied  educational 
literature  showing  an  equal  range  in  educational  practice  and  theory ;  by 
the  growing  importance  of  the  school  as  a  social  institution,  and  the  fuller 
recognition  of  education  as  a  social  process ;  and  by  the  great  increase  in 
the  number  of  teachers  and  the  instability  of  tenure  which  at  the  same 
time  marks  the  profession. 

The  men  who  need  it  are :  All  teachers,  professional  men,  editors,  ministers, 
legislators,  all  public  men  who  deal  with  large  questions  of  public  welfare 
intimately  connected  with  education  —  every  one  who  appreciates  the  value 
of  a  reference  work  which  will  give  him  the  outlines  of  any  educational 
problem,  the  suggested  solutions,  the  statistical  information,  and  in  general 
the  essential  facts  necessary  to  its  comprehension. 

Among  the  departmental  Editors  associated  with  Dr.  Monroe  are  Dr.  Elmer 
E.  Brown,  U.  S.  Commissioner  of  Education,  Prof.  E.  F.  BUCHNER,  of 
Johns  Hopkins,  Dr.  Wm.  H.  Burnham,  Clark  University,  M.  Gabriel 
CoMPAYRE,  Inspector-General  of  Public  Instruction,  Paris,  France,  Prof. 
WiLHELM  MiJNCH,  of  Berlin  University,  Germany,  Prof.  JOHN  Dewey,  of 
Columbia  University,  Dr.  Ellwood  P.  Cubberly,  Stanford  University, 
Cal.,  Prof.  Foster  Watson,  of  the  University  College  of  Wales,  Dr. 
David  Snedden,  Commissioner  of  Education  for  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  others. 

Send  for  a  descriptive  circular  and  list  of  contributors  to  Volume  I 


To  be  completed  in  five  large  octavo  volumes,  each  $5.00  net 


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The  Philosophy  of  Education 

By  HERMAN  HARRELL  HORNE,  Ph.D. 

Professor  of  the  History  of  Philosophy  and  of  the  History  of  Education,  New 
York  University 

Cloth,  8vo,  xvii  +  zg^  page^t  $i-SO  net 

A  connected  series  of  discussions  on  the  foundations  of  education  in  the 
related  sciences  of  biology,  physiology,  sociology,  and  philosophy,  and  a 
thoroughgoing  interpretation  of  the  nature,  place,  and  meaning  of  educa- 
tion in  our  world.  The  newest  points  of  view  in  the  realms  of  natural  and 
mental  science  are  applied  to  the  understanding  of  educational  problems. 
The  field  of  education  is  carefully  divided,  and  the  total  discussion  is 
devoted  to  the  philosophy  of  education,  in  distinction  from  its  history, 
science,  and  art 

The  Psychological  Principles  of  Education 

By  HERMAN  HARRELL  HORNE,  Ph.D. 

C/otA,  i2mo,  xiii  +  43s  p^gt^t  ^'^•75  *t^f 

The  relationship  of  this  book  to  the  author's  "  Philosophy  of  Education  "  is 
that,  whereas  the  first  was  mostly  theory  with  some  practice,  this  is  mostly 
practice  with  some  theory.  This  volume  lays  the  scientific  foundations  for 
the  art  of  teaching  so  far  as  those  foundations  are  concerned  with  psychol- 
ogy. Tiie  author  is  the  "  middleman  "  between  the  psychologist  and  the 
teacher,  taking  the  theoretical  descriptions  of  pure  psychology  and  trans- 
forming them  into  educational  principles  for  the  teacher.  In  the  Intro- 
duction the  reader  gets  his  bearing  in  the  field  of  the  science  of 
education.  The  remainder  of  the  book  sketches  this  science  from  the 
standpoint  of  psychology,  the  four  parts  of  the  work,  Intellectual  Educa- 
tion, Emotional  Education,  Moral  Education,  and  Religious  Education, 
being  suggested  by  the  nature  of  man,  the  subject  of  education.  A  special 
feature  is  the  attention  paid  to  the  education  of  the  emotions  and  of  the  will 

Idealism  in  Elducation 

Or  First  Principles  in  the  Making  of  Men  and  Women 

By  HERMAN  HARRELL  HORNE,   Ph.D. 

Author  of  "  The  Philosophy  of  Education  "  and  "  The  Psychological  Principles 
of  Education  " 

Cloth,  i2mo,  xxi  +  183  pages,  index,  %ias  '"''■  h  »»«»/,  %i.34 

Note.  —  Professor  Home  here  discusses  three  things  which  he  regards  as 
fundamental  in  the  building  of  human  character,  —  Heredity,  Environment, 
and  Will.  His  method  of  nandling  these  otherwise  heavy  subjects,  makes 
the  book  of  interest,  even  to  the  general  reader. 


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DYNAMIC  FACTORS  IN  EDUCATION 

By  M.  V.  O'Shea,  Professor  of  the  Science  and  Art  of  Education,  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin.     Cloth.     i2mo.     xiii  +  320  pages.     $1.2^  net. 

This  volume  is  the  result  of  the  author's  conviction  that  the  motor 
and  physical  factors  should  receive  more  attention  than  they  now  do 
in  most  cases.  In  the  first  part  he  shows  that  in  the  early  years,  at 
any  rate,  motor  expression  is  essential  to  all  learning,  and  he  has 
indicated  how  the  requirements  of  dynamic  education  can  be  pro- 
vided for  in  all  departments  of  school  work.  Attention  is  paid  also 
to  the  definite  order  in  which  the  motor  powers  develop.  The 
second  part  of  the  book  treats  the  relation  between  fatigue  and 
activity.  On  the  one  side  the  nature  and  causes  of  fatigue  are  dis- 
cussed and  then  the  effects  upon  mind  and  body  are  traced.  Much 
space  is  given  to  pointing  out  ways  and  means  of  carrj'ing  on  the 
work  of  the  schoolroom  without  overtaxing  the  pupil.  Dr.  O'Shea 
has  summarized  the  investigations  made  upon  the  different  topics 
discussed  by  specialists  and  has  added  his  own  observations  made 
upon  children  whose  development  he  has  followed  in  detail  for  a 
number  of  years.  Topics  for  investigation  and  discussion  designed 
to  encourage  the  reader  to  make  practical  tests  and  applications  of 
the  principles  developed  are  added  to  each  chapter. 


LINGUISTIC  DEVELOPMENT  AND  EDUCATION 

ByM.V.  O'Shea.     lamo.     Cloth.    xvii+ 347  pages.     $1.2$  net. 

A  study  of  the  psychology  of  linguistic  development  derived  from 
observation  of  children  from  the  beginning  of  expressive  activity 
until  mastery  of  the  mother  tongue  in  its  vocal  and  auditory  forms 
has  been  acquired.  The  history  and  methods  of  these  observations, 
and  the  deductions  made  in  reference  to  linguistic  functions,  form 
the  substance  of  a  volume  which  will  have  great  interest  for  all 
students  both  of  language  and  of  mental  development. 


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(54-<S6  FIFTH  AVENUE,  NEW  YORK 


METHODS   IN  TEACHING 

Being  the  Stockton  Methods  in  Elementary  Schools.  By  Mrs.  Rosa 
V.  WiNTERBURN,  of  Los  Angeles,  and  James  A.  Barr,  Superin- 
tendent of  Schools  at  Stockton,  Cal.  i2mo.  Cloth,  xii  +  355  pages. 
1 1. 25  net. 

This  book  is  a  direct  product  of  the  schoolroom.  It  treats  the 
presentation  of  subject-matter  in  the  various  studies  usually  taught 
in  elementary  schools  from  three  points  of  view  —  that  of  the  super- 
intendent or  supervisor,  of  the  teacher,  and  of  the  pupil.  The  book 
grew  out  of  the  exhibit  made  by  the  Stockton  schools  at  the  Expo- 
sition in  St.  Louis,  and  later  in  Portland,  which  attracted  widespread 
attention  because  of  the  honesty  of  the  pupils'  work,  the  "  method 
sheets  "  by  teachers,  and  the  efficiency  of  results.  Many  composi- 
tions by  young  pupils  trained  under  this  method  are  given. 


A  BRIEF  COURSE  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF 
EDUCATION 

By  Paul  Monroe,  Ph.D.,  Professor  in  the  History  of  Education, 
Teachers  College,  Columbia  University.  8vo.  Qotb.  xviii  +  409 
pages.     $1.25  net. 

This  is  practically  a  condensation  of  Professor  Monroe's  "  Text- 
book in  the  History  of  Education,"  issued  more  than  two  years  ago, 
and  still  the  most  extensive  work  on  the  subject  in  English.  The 
present  abbreviation  has  been  made  in  answer  to  the  demands  of 
normal  schools  and  teachers'  training  classes  which  have  not  the 
time  to  devote  to  the  study  of  the  larger  text.  Nevertheless  it  treats 
of  all  the  general  periods,  and  of  most  of  the  topics  discussed  in  tha 
larger  work. 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 
WAY   2       t964'  Lm  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


SUBJECT  TV 


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HECErVED 

AUG  23  1974 


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UBRMK 


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'NTERL/BRAflY    LOANS 

'^UL  2  2  1974 

TWO  WEEKS  FRO\fl  DATE  OF  RECEIPT 
NON-RENEWABLE 


/S^^    ^"^''^ 


V    flt^lOTW^  I'vJL*— 


Form  L9-116m-8.'62(D123788)444 


UCLA-EO/PSYCH  Library 

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SRANGH, 

CALIFORNIA, 

9rARY, 

IS,  CALIF. 


